GCP PDF

God-Centred Praying
by
Zac Poonen
Copyright Zac Poonen (1990)
Contents
Paperback ISBN: 9789190565875

ePub ISBN: 9789384302313
Kindle ISBN: 9789384302627
PDF ISBN: 9789384302931
This Book and You.......................................... v
This book has been copyrighted to prevent misuse.
2. God Who is Our Father................................ 13
It should not be reprinted or translated without written

permission from the author.
3. The Glory of Gods Name.............................. 25
Permission is however given for any part of this book

to be downloaded and printed provided it is for FREE
distribution, provided NO ALTERATIONS are made, provided
the AUTHORS NAME AND ADDRESS are mentioned, and
provided this copyright notice is included in each printout.
5. The Will of God............................................ 47
For further details
8. Freedom from Evil....................................... 81
Please contact:
9. To God Be the Glory..................................... 95
The Publisher cfc@cfcindia.com
1. How Not to Pray........................................... 1
4. The Kingdom of God.................................... 39

6. Our Physical Needs...................................... 55
7. Forgiveness of Sins...................................... 67
About the Book
40 DaCosta Square,
Bangalore 560084
India
iii
Our Father Who art in heaven,

Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory,
forever.
Amen.
This Book and You

There are two essentials to effective prayer.
The first is that we must have a God-given BURDEN.
Prayer is like a circle that begins and ends in God.
The first half of that circle is God giving us a burden
in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. The second half
of the circle is our praying that God-inspired prayer
back to our Father. Thus the circle is complete. This
is what it means to pray in the Spirit.
The second essential is FAITH. God expects us to
trust Him. We dishonour Him by unbelief because
unbelief implies that God is less considerate towards
us than earthly fathers are towards their children.
Prayer is not really prayer in Gods ears, if our petitions originate only in our minds or on our tongues.
It is only when they are the deepest longings of our
hearts, that they become true prayer.
Prayer is essentially a matter of life. And the
effectiveness of our prayers will depend upon the
righteousness of our life. True righteousness makes
a man God-centred. That means that he begins to
look at things from Gods viewpoint (Colossians1:9
- paraphrase). He is no longer looking at people or
things or circumstances from a human viewpoint
(2Corinthians 5:16). All these may remain unchanged
around him. But the God-centred man has moved
This Book and You
up to the heavenlies, and now looks at everyone and

everything the way God looks at them.
Only such a man can pray according to the mind
of God.
God meant prayer to be to our spirits what breathing is to our bodies. Breathing is an effortless activity
that we are engaged in all the time. We dont need
books to teach us how to breathe! In fact, when
breathing becomes difficult for us, its a sign of some
sickness!
That doesnt mean prayer is not strenuous
work. Jesus prayed with loud crying and tears
(Hebrews 5:7). The apostles laboured earnestly in
their prayers (Colossians 4:12). All wholehearted
Christians will find prayer to be the same, for our
struggle is against spiritual forces of wickedness
(Ephesians 6:12). But when prayer becomes a dreary
ritual, its a sure sign that the patient has spiritual
asthma!
Such believers are sick. And they need to realise it.
What they need to be cured is not more teaching on
how to pray but some teaching on re-orienting their
priorities in life.
Thats what this book is all about.
When we are centred in God and have our priorities right, well be healed of this asthma. Prayer will
still be mingled with loud crying and tears, and there
will still be travail and struggle, but it wont be a
ritual any longer. It will be a delight and a joy.
If you want such a life, read on
Zac Poonen
vi
Chapter 1
How Not to Pray

When you pray, you are not to be as the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the
synagogues and on the street corners, in order
to be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have
their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go
into your inner room, and when you have shut
your door, pray to your Father who is in secret,
and your Father who sees in secret will repay
you.
And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition, as the Gentiles do, for they
suppose that they will be heard for their many
words. Therefore do not be like them; for your
Father knows what you need, before you ask
Him.
Pray, then, in this way: Our Father who art in
heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom
come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us
our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver
God-Centred Praying
How Not to Pray
us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the

power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
as well. They were extremely careful in following the

little details of what they understood to be the laws
of God. Externally they were very moral and upright.
They would never miss a Sabbath service in the synagogue. They were deeply taught in the Scriptures.
Yet Jesus condemned them because what they did
was primarily in order to obtain honour from their
fellow men.
For if you forgive men for their transgressions,

your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if
you do not forgive men, then your Father will not
forgive your transgressions (Matthew 6:515).
This is the only prayer that Jesus ever taught His
disciples. It must certainly be profitable for us then
to understand it properly.
Jesus said that whenever we pray we were to pray
in this way (verses 9). That doesnt mean that we have
to repeat this prayer each time we pray. But it does
mean that all our praying should follow this pattern.
Theres no harm in praying this prayer if we mean
every sentence of it. But thats not easy, as we shall
soon see.
Before Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, He
first taught them how NOT to pray.
They loved the approval of men rather than the

approval of God (John 12:43).
The first thing that Jesus said in relation to how

NOT to pray was that we were not to pray as the
hypocrites do (verses 5, 6).
As you read through the gospels you find that Jesus
had a lot to say about hypocrisy. He condemned the
Pharisees in no uncertain terms, because they were
hypocrites. The Pharisees had many good points
about them. They prayed every day. They fasted twice
every week. They tithed not only their money, but the
dill and cummin that grew in their kitchen garden
The descendants of the Pharisees those who love

the praise of their leaders and other men, more than
the praise of God now live in the midst of every
church and fellowship in the world.
The word hypocrite comes from a Greek word
which means an actor. Think of a man who acts
as John the Baptist in a Hollywood movie. In real
life he may be a drunkard and a debaucher, having
divorced two or three wives. But in the movie, he
plays his part as a holy prophet of God. Thats what
a hypocrite is one who acts a part before men, but
who is actually something quite different in real life.
A hypocrite may act his part as a wholehearted
Christian before other believers. But if you saw the
way he treated his wife at home, or how he deals
with people in his office, youd find hes a different
person altogether. Why? He is not acting there. At
home and at work he is the person that he really is.
He is a religious man, not a spiritual man.
An actor wants his audience to appreciate how he
acts. So does every hypocrite. So did the Pharisees
Not as the Hypocrites
God-Centred Praying
How Not to Pray
in the first century; and so do the Pharisees in the

twentieth century. Whatever they do, even if it be
a sacred activity such as praying, they want to be
appreciated by men. They may pray beautifully but
it is for people to notice them.
If we are honest, we will have to confess that many
a time, we have all prayed as hypocrites more
conscious that people were listening to us, than God.
Maybe we need to confess to the Lord that when we
pray in public we dont pray in the same way as we do
when were alone. Perhaps we use flowery or fervent
language in our public prayer to impress people.
Jesus warned us to beware of praying like that, for
that type of prayer doesnt reach God at all.
If we want to be delivered from hypocrisy, whether
in our preaching, or our living, or our praying, we
need to ask God to give us such a fear of Him that we
care more for His praise than for the praise of men.
Until we learn to fear God aright, we shall continue
to be actors playing our part before men, in every
area of our lives.
Jesus condemned hypocrisy more than any other
sin.
What was their sin?

Was it that they didnt bring all the money which
they got from the sale of their property and give it
to God? No. That was not their sin. If you sell your
property for 100,000 rupees and decide to give only
50,000 rupees to God, that is not a sin. If you decide
to give nothing to God that is not a sin either. That
is really your own business as to how much you give
to Him. God loves a cheerful giver; and if you dont
give cheerfully, you might as well give nothing. He
doesnt need your money. He has more than enough
of silver and gold!
Why then did Ananias and Sapphira die? The
reason was this: Ananias pretended that what he was
laying at the apostles feet was the whole of the salemoney. With a holy, pious look on his face, Ananias
looked just as consecrated as the others. He was an
actor, a hypocrite.
But Peter was a man of God and he wasnt fooled.
God gave him discernment to see through the
hollowness of Ananias consecration. And he said,
Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to
the Holy Spirit? (Acts 5:3).
What lie did Ananias say? He hadnt opened his
mouth.
What does it mean to tell a lie? It means to give a
false impression; and you can give a false impression
without even opening your mouth.
Thats what Ananias did. He wanted to get the
acclaim of others that he was also a wholehearted
disciple. But he was not. He had kept something
back for himself. Now, as I said, that was not a sin. If
only he had said, Brother Peter, I have sold my land.
But I dont feel I should give all the sale proceeds to
God, like the others are doing. Here is a part of the
money if he had said that, he would not have died.
Not Giving False Impressions

The first sin that we read of in the early church
was hypocrisy. In Acts 5, you read of Ananias and
Sapphira.
God-Centred Praying
How Not to Pray
That would have been honesty, and God would have

appreciated it.
But he pretended. That was his sin and thats why
he died. A little later his wife came in and she acted
her part beautifully too! She also pretended that she
was giving everything. And she died as well.
That hypocrisy was like a little leaven that had got
into the early church; and God knew that if it wasnt
taken out immediately, the whole church would soon
be corrupted. Thats why He slew them at once.
If you dont beware of hypocrisy in every area of
your life, you will never be able to overcome hypocrisy in your prayer-life. If you pray in order that other
people may appreciate you, then Jesus says, Youve
already got your reward (Matthew 6:2). Your desire
then is not that God should be glorified through your
prayer but that other people should know how well
you can pray. Then youll get that reward.
But thats all youll get. Thats what you wanted,
and thats what youll get.
This is a principle in the Christian life that we get
what we long for in the depths of our hearts, and not
what we ask for with our lips. Seek and you will find
what you are really seeking for!
When we stand at the judgment seat of Christ,
we will stand stripped of all our outward veneer.
There we shall be seen no longer as actors but as we
really are. Thats why the Bible says that we have to
be careful how we walk today, lest we stand there
stripped, naked and ashamed one day.
1 John 2:28 reads, Now little children abide in
Christ so that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink away. The people who are
going to be ashamed in that day are those who lived

their life on earth as actors.
Im speaking now to believers. To whom was the
sermon on the mount preached? If youll turn to
Matthew 5:12, youll find that Jesus spoke those
words to His disciples. It was to His disciples that
He said,
Beware of practising your righteousness before

men (Matthew 6:1).
It was to his disciples that he said,
Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees which is
hypocrisy (Luke 12:1).
Walking in the Light
The Bible says in 1 John 1:7 that we cannot have
fellowship with God if we do not walk in the light. If
we walk in the light we certainly cant hide anything,
for the light exposes everything. The man who walks
in darkness is the one who has something to hide in
his life. If we walk in the light, our life is an open book.
We can then invite people to examine our private life,
our account books and everything. There is nothing
we want to hide. It doesnt mean that were perfect.
No, it only means that we are honest.
The first thing that God requires from all of us
is honesty absolute honesty. If we are willing to
be honest first, many of our other problems will be
solved very quickly. We will progress in leaps and
God-Centred Praying
How Not to Pray
bounds in our spiritual life if we live by this fundamental rule of honesty before God and men.
But youll find that this is a battle. You may say,
Im really going to take that exhortation seriously.
Im going to be honest from now on. But youll find
before the week is out that youre tempted to be an
actor again, and to seek for the praise of men rather
than the praise of God. So you have to determine to
fight that battle and win.
It is a great grief to God that there are so many
Christians today who have been born again for
twenty, thirty or forty years, but who havent
progressed spiritually because they have not learned
this fundamental lesson of being honest. We cant
progress if there is hypocrisy in our life. Our prayers
will not be heard. We can have all-night prayer meetings; but we are wasting our time. Our prayers will
not be heard if we do not get rid of hypocrisy first.
We must recognize that our true spiritual worth
is what we are before God and nothing more than
that. Our spiritual state is not determined by our
knowledge of the Bible, nor by how much we pray,
nor by how many meetings we attend, nor by what
the elders or others in the church think of us. On the
contrary, ask yourself, What does God, Who can see
into every area of my life, think of me? The answer
to that is the real measure of how spiritual you are.
We need to remind ourselves of this daily, or else we
may find ourselves becoming actors again.
I love those words that Jesus said about Nathaniel,
Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile
(John 1:47). If Jesus could say that about you and
me, that would be a greater commendation that
almost anything else. Nathaniel was not perfect. He

was imperfect. But he was honest about his imperfections. He didnt pretend to be something that he
wasnt. Thats where he was different from Ananias
and Sapphira.
Not with Meaningless Repetition

A second thing that Jesus warned us against was
the use of meaningless repetition in prayer, as the
Gentiles do when they pray.
It is not the number of words that we use that
God sees as much as the longings of our heart. Real
prayer is the longing of the heart. That longing is
what ascends to God and gets an answer.
Repetition of words is all right, if you mean what
you say. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed
three times using the same words (Matthew 26:44).
But His words were not empty repetition. Each time
He prayed, the words came with a burden from His
heart. You can pray with the same words ten times
a day, and God will hear you, if you pray sincerely
from your heart each time.
Christians are guilty of telling more lies to God
on Sundays than on any other day. You know why?
Because it is on Sundays that they sing so many
hymns such as, All to Jesus I surrender, Take
my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold,
etc.
You may sing those words because theyre in the
hymnbook. But you dont mean them. And you dont
realize that youre speaking directly to God when you
sing such hymns. Maybe you are more conscious of
God-Centred Praying
How Not to Pray
the tune than of the words. Thats when you tell lies
to God.
Jesus said that we would have to give an account
to God in the day of judgment for every careless word
that we spoke (Matthew 12:36). Its because we live in
a generation of Christians who do not fear God that
such warnings of our Lord are not taken seriously.
Vain repetition is the mark of the heathen who
come into Gods presence carelessly and say things
that they dont mean. That should never be found in
our praying or our singing.
And then Elijah prayed. His prayer was over in less

than a minute but it brought the fire. Thats the test
not whether you pray for a minute or all night, but
whether God answers or not!
Man looks on the outward appearance, but God
looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).
The effective prayer of a righteous man can
accomplish much (James 5:16). James goes on to
refer to Elijahs example there. Elijahs prayer was
answered, not because he shouted for so many
hours but because he was a righteous man. Its the
life behind the prayer that makes the prayer effective. Lets never forget that.
These are some of the fundamental lessons that
Jesus taught His disciples, before He taught them
how they should pray. We can never learn to pray
aright if we dont first learn how not to pray.
Let me add one last word here, lest I be
misunderstood.
Having an all-night prayer meeting is certainly not
wrong. Jesus Himself prayed all night on one occasion (Luke 6:12). What Jesus condemned was not
much praying, but trusting in many words. There
is a lot of difference between many words and much
praying. If our praying is only many words then it is
a waste of time. Jesus could spend a whole night in
prayer effectively because His heart was right and He
had a God-given burden.
However, its not the length of time spent in prayer
that determines whether God answers or not. Its the
life of the man who prays that determines that.
Not Trusting in Long Prayers

Jesus also said that the heathen thought that they
would be heard because of their many words.
Some believers feel that if they have an all-night
prayer meeting, God is bound to answer them, just
because they prayed for so long. That type of praying
is characteristic of the heathen.
You remember the time on Mount Carmel when
Elijah stood on one side and 450 prophets of the
heathen God, Baal, stood on the other side and
they both tried to bring fire down from heaven to
find out who was the true God. The prophets of Baal
had a long prayer meeting. They prayed and prayed
and prayed; and then they jumped and danced
and shouted. But there was no fire. God saw their
hearts and He wasnt impressed by their emotional
outbursts or their noise (1 Kings 18:2029).
There are Christians who pray like that too! They
think God will hear them because of all their emotion
and their shouting.
10
11
Chapter 2
God Who is Our Father

Our Father who art in heaven
Children usually pray to the Lord Jesus and there is
nothing wrong with that. But it is good to remember
that in the only prayer Jesus ever taught His disciples, He taught them to address their prayers to God
the Father. We pray IN the Spirit THROUGH the Son
TO the Father.
Not everyone can address God as Father though.
On earth, its only the man through whom you were
born whom you can call your father. We must recognize this when we pray to God as well. It is only when
a person turns from his sins, yielding himself to
Jesus Christ as Lord of his life that he is born again
as a child of God. Only then can he call God Father.
Our New Testament Privilege
The Israelites could never call God their Father. That
title was introduced for the first time by Jesus. It
was the title that Jesus Himself used constantly in
His own communication with His heavenly Father.
13
God-Centred Praying
We dont realise what a privilege it is to call God our

Father.
In the Old Testament, God taught the Jews His
unapproachable holiness by putting a veil in the
temple, behind which was the most holy place, where
He dwelt. Into this place no man could enter, except
the high priest once a year. If you had gone to those
Jews 2500 years ago and told them that one day, God
was going to open a way for anyone to enter His presence freely, they would have considered it impossible.
Yet this is the privilege that is offered us today
under the new covenant. The veil has now been rent
so that we have freedom of access right into the
Fathers presence; and we can call Him Father.
Weve got to read the Old Testament if we want to
appreciate our new covenant privileges sufficiently.
Its wonderful to see the father-heart of God in
the parable of the prodigal son. The son comes back
after having wasted his fathers property and ruined
his fathers name. As soon as the father sees him,
he runs to embrace him. There we see a picture of
God the Father. Its the only place in the Bible where
God is pictured as running and it is to embrace a
repentant sinner (Luke 15:20)!
That was how Jesus portrayed God to the people.
He wanted to eradicate from their minds the wrong
concepts of God that the teachings of the scribes and
the Pharisees had given them.
After the resurrection, when Mary Magdalene
met Jesus outside the tomb, Jesus said to her, I
ascend to My Father and your Father (John 20:17).
Through the death and resurrection of Christ, His
disciples had come into a relationship with God that
had never existed before. They could now call God

their own Father. As a child can sit on his fathers
lap, man could now be just as intimate with God.
Many have the wrong idea that God the Father is

a very strict Person and that it is only Jesus Who
loves them. This is a Satanic distortion of the truth.
It was the love of the Father that sent Jesus to save
us from our sins. Jesus told His disciples, The
Father Himself loves you (John 16:27). He also told
them that if their Heavenly Father fed the birds and
clothed the flowers, He would certainly take care
of them. There was no need for them to be anxious
then, for their Heavenly Father knew all their needs
(Matthew 6:2634).
He also told them that if earthly fathers knew how
to give good gifts to their children, their heavenly
Father would certainly give good things to His children too (Matthew 7:11).
You may say that all this is very elementary. Yet
many times when we come to God in prayer we
dont really believe that God is going to grant us
our request, because we are not sure of His tender,
loving, fatherly care for us. Thus we limit God by our
unbelief. Do you really believe that when you pray,
you are speaking to a loving Father Who delights to
hear you and Who cares for you?
Some may have the feeling that God will hear them
only if they are mature saints. How is it with an
earthly father? If he has a number of children, does
he listen to his 20-year-old son more than to his
14
15
A Loving Father
God-Centred Praying
3-year-old daughter? Does he tell his little daughter, You are too young to talk to me. I cant listen to
you? Certainly not. In fact, the father is more likely
to listen to his youngest child than to His older children. Its even so with God.
He says, All shall know Me (as Father), from the
least (youngest) to the greatest (oldest) (Hebrew
8:11). Notice that the youngest are mentioned first!
Even if you were born again but yesterday, you
can come to God boldly saying, O God, You are my
Father, I am Your child, and therefore I have a right
to talk to You. Thats the way Jesus encouraged His
disciples to go to God in prayer.
Every time we pray, we must approach God as a
Father who loves and cares, and who is interested in
us. Only thus can faith be generated; and without
faith it is no use praying at all.
God is a good God. He delights to give good gifts to
His children. The Bible says in Psalm 84:11,
No good thing does He withhold from those who
walk uprightly.
In Psalm 37:4 it says,
Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you
the desires of your heart.
These promises in the Old Testament are endorsed
and confirmed and amplified by Jesus in the New
Testament along with many more promises.
This is the foundation for our faith the conscious
acknowledgement of God as our loving Father.
16
A Holy God
We are to address God as our Father WHO IS IN
HEAVEN. Hes not only our Father, Hes also the
Almighty God. We need to keep both these facts in
mind when we come to Him in prayer.
We approach Him with reverence because He is a
God Who is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29).
Many Christians think of God as a grandfather!!
You know how grandfathers are always lenient
with their grandchildren, ignoring whatever evil they
do. Many Christians think that God is like that, not
taking their sins seriously. That idea is totally wrong.
God is a Father.
But He is also God. He is the One before whom the
seraphs of heaven cover their faces and cry, Holy,
Holy, Holy (Isaiah 6:3). Those seraphs have never
sinned. Yet, when they approach God, they have to
cover their faces, for they cannot bear to look upon
the holiness of God. This tells us something about
the infinite purity of God that our finite minds can
never comprehend.
Consider the effect of the vision of God on some
of the great men in the Bible. Isaiah felt he was a
terrible sinner when he saw the glory of God (Isaiah
6:5). Moses covered his face, because he was afraid
to look at God (Exodus 3:6). Daniel felt drained of all
his strength (Daniel 10:8), and the apostle John fell
down as a dead man (Revelation 1:17).
Since most Christians do not know God in this
way, their lives remain shallow and superficial.
There are two extremes that people go to in
approaching God. There are those who feel that God
17
God-Centred Praying
is unapproachable; and knowing nothing of His love,

they live in constant dread of Him, trying to appease
Him in various ways. At the other extreme, are some
Christians who have developed such an unholy
familiarity with God, that they dont fear Him any
longer as a consuming fire.
One who approaches God without reverence does
not know God at all. The more we know Him, the
more well fear Him and reverence Him when we
come to Him in prayer. We come to Him with boldness, because He is our Father. But we come to Him
with reverence too, because He is God.
Have you noticed that in the thirteen epistles of
Paul (from Romans through to Philemon), he always
begins with this greeting, Grace and peace from
GOD OUR FATHER. Paul knew Him as God and as
a Father; and he wanted others to know Him in the
same way too.
He rules over all the earth as Supreme Sovereign and

thats why we can relax!
Perhaps the greatest truth that the Church needs

to recognize in this day is the truth of the sovereignty
of God and the total authority of Jesus Christ over
all nations and powers.
Consider something that has taken place in the
lifetime of many of us. We all know that one of
Israels greatest enemies today is Soviet Russia.
Russia would be delighted if Israel could be wiped
out of existence. Yet in May 1948, when Great Britain
failed to keep its promise to the Jews to give them the
land of Palestine, it was the Russian vote in favour
of Israel that enabled the United Nations to accept
the establishment of the state of Israel. Of course,
Russias aim was to get the British out of Palestine.
But nevertheless, it goes to show how God in His
sovereignty, could use even an atheistic nation to
fulfil His word and help bring the Jews back to their
land, when a so-called Christian nation backed out
on its promise.
God is on the throne and He is in total control of
the affairs of the world. It is only as our faith is rooted
and grounded on this truth that our hearts can be at
rest, no matter what may happen around us in the
days to come.
The Bible tells us to pray for the government
(1Timothy 2:1, 2). Its no use doing that unless we
believe that our prayers are going to change existing situations. I, for one, wouldnt waste my time
praying for those in authority, if I didnt believe that
God was sovereign enough to influence government
decisions and even voting patterns at election-time,
in answer to prayer. We have prayed for our country
in past days and seen that our prayers have brought
18
19
A Sovereign Ruler
Who art in heaven, also reminds us that the One we
are praying to is One Who is Sovereign and Almighty,
ruling in the heavens.
Even in the Old Testament, God sought to impress
His sovereignty upon His people. He told them,
Relax and know that I am God. I will be exalted
among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth
(Psalm 46:10 - NASB margin).
God-Centred Praying
miraculous results for the furtherance of Gods

purposes in our land!
next (Luke 21:26). But it is at just such a time, that

we are exhorted to lift up our heads fearlessly and to
look for Christs return (Luke 21:28).
The kings heart is like channels of water in the

hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever He wishes
(Proverbs 21:1).
God can make the greatest ruler in the world change
his decisions, if we pray.
If the Prime Minister of India were your father,
what a difference that would make in your attitude
to problems and difficulties that you face in your life.
If your landlord threatens you, or your boss makes
life difficult for you, or somebody is unjust towards
you, or you need something done urgently, would
you have any worries? No. Youd just have to ring up
your Dad and ask him to solve your problem.
Isnt the Lord greater than the Prime Minister
of India? What do we do then when we face some
problem in our life? Do we say, Well, Ill just tell my
heavenly Father about it. He rules the universe, and
He can surely sort out this problem? Or do we say,
I wish I knew some influential cabinet minister or
Police Officer, who can help me now? Which is our
first reaction?
Many Christians are atheists when it comes to the
practical matters of daily life. They talk about faith
in God in the meetings and even in their homes. But
when it comes to earthly matters, they are full of fear
and anxiety just like any atheist.
There has never been as much fear as in our day.
Jesus said that in the last days mens hearts would
faint from fear wondering what was going to happen
20
Perfect Security
We have an Almighty Father and so were certainly
not orphans. Lets not behave like orphans then.
When youre fearful or anxious, youre insulting your
heavenly Father for you are thereby saying that
you have no confidence in Him, that you feel He cant
do anything for you in your difficult situation, either
because He is powerless or because He doesnt care!
That is the testimony of an unbelieving heart.
If you really believed that God loved you and cared
for you and was Almighty, why would you ever need
to be anxious? Theres a poem about a two birds that
has often challenged me:
Said the robin to the sparrow,
I would really like to know Why these anxious
human beings rush about and worry so.
Said the sparrow to the robin,
Friend, I think that it must be That they have no
heavenly father such as cares for you and me.
Jesus said
Fear not, you are of more value than many sparrows (Matthew 10:31).
21
God-Centred Praying
If Jesus is Lord of our life, and we have no ambition on earth, but to do the will of God, then we can
be sure that all things WILL work together for our
good, whatever may happen to us or around us
(Romans 8:28).
God wants us to live in perfect security in His
Fatherly love and care for us. We must be convinced
that His care for us began even before we were born.
He was the One Who determined who our parents
should be, what our temperament should be, how
much education we would receive, where we would
live etc. Once we are convinced of this, we will find
that we live in perfect rest, without a single complaint
against our circumstances or our parents or anyone
else (Psalms 139:16).
God can make even the anger of man to praise Him
(Psalms 76:10). One of the clearest examples of this is
found in the life of Joseph. If you read Genesis chapters 37 to 50, youll see how Gods sovereign power
made all the evil things that different people did to
Joseph, to work together for his good, just because
he was faithful to his God.
God promised the Israelites that those who
honoured their parents would live long on the earth
(Ephesians 6:2, 3). How could God promise that
unless He was able to keep each such person from
being murdered by an enemy and from dying of
cancer or an accident etc. God is well able to do that
even today. Its only our unbelief that prevents us
from enjoying the benefits of Gods sovereign power.
22
The Father of a Family

Finally, remember that Jesus said that we were to
call God, OUR Father and not My Father. Theres
an important point here. This is a family-prayer.
My heavenly Father has many children, and I must
recognize this fact when I come to Him. I am only one
among many of His children. No one in this family
is more privileged than another. All are equal. He is
OUR Father.
I cannot therefore have a proper vertical relationship with God, if my horizontal relationship with my
fellow believers in this family is not proper. There
are two arms to the cross a vertical arm and a horizontal arm. Fellowship too has a vertical arm and
a horizontal one. In other words, if my relationship
with my brothers and sisters in the family of God is
not proper, if Im not on speaking terms with some
of them, if Ive a grudge against one of them or if I
am angry with someone or havent forgiven someone,
then I cannot come to God and say, OUR Father.
Isnt He also the Father of that other person whom I
havent forgiven?
We cannot come to God if we despise anyone in
the Body of Christ. You remember how the Pharisee
prayed, Lord, I thank Thee that I am not like other
people or even like this tax-gatherer (Luke 18:11).
With such an attitude we can never come to God in
prayer. You cannot pray this prayer if you are not
willing to come down to the level of all your fellowbelievers, recognizing that as far as God is concerned,
your social status and your education and even your
23
God-Centred Praying
spirituality do not exalt you above them in any way.

We are all members of one family.
God intended the fellowship of each local church
to have the atmosphere of a home, where brothers
and sisters are like family members and where strangers coming in would feel that they were coming into
a home. Where this is not so, it is because Gods
children there have failed to recognise what Jesus
taught in this prayer.
And so, each time we pray, we must approach God
on this basis:
Chapter 3
The Glory of Gods Name

Hallowed be Thy Name
recognizing His Fatherhood and His loving care,

and therefore coming to Him with boldness;
recognizing that He is a Holy God, and therefore
coming to Him with reverence;
recognizing that He is the Sovereign Ruler in
heaven, and therefore coming to Him with faith;
and
recognizing that He is the Father of a large family,
and therefore coming to Him, as a part of that
family.
Prayer is essentially a matter of our life, and that is

why Jesus told us to pray always (Luke 18:1). That
does not mean that we are to be on our knees all the
time. We do have seasons when we go on our knees
for a time. But we must be in a spirit of prayer all the
time. It must affect our whole life.
24
25
Right Priorities in Prayer

The prayer that Jesus taught His disciples reveals
what the priorities of our life should be and what our
greatest longings should be for. It has six petitions.
The first three concern God: Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is
in heaven. The next three concern us: Give us this
day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we also
have forgiven our debtors. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
There is something very important to notice here.
Our primary requests in prayer should not be related
to our own problems. We may have many problems,
God-Centred Praying
even spiritual ones perhaps, but they are not to come

first in our praying. Gods glory must be first.
If we were to examine our life and see what takes
priority in our heart as we express its longings to God,
we may find that we have seldom if ever followed this
order. This shows that we havent taken the teaching of Jesus seriously. For if we had read Gods Word
accurately and carefully, we would have realized that
Jesus taught us to pray in only one way with top
priority given to God and His glory.
because God is not first. And even when we pray we

desire the gifts more than the Giver. One mark of a
spiritual man is that he desires the Giver more than
the gift; and he loves the Giver even if he doesnt
receive any gifts.
This is one of the tests by which we can assess
whether we are spiritually-minded or not: Are we
content and satisfied even when God doesnt answer
our prayers as we expected Him to?
Why is it that so many believers grumble and
complain when God doesnt answer their prayers?
Because they only wanted His gifts. They were not
so keen on the Giver. They are like the prodigal son,
who when he got what he wanted from his father,
went off to enjoy it on himself. He only wanted his
fathers gifts. He came back to his father only when
he had exhausted the gifts and wanted some more
(Luke 15:1124).
Notice, that fifty percent of this prayer is concerned
with God and His glory. Its not that we just say as a
matter of ritual, Lord, first of all I want Your Name
to be glorified and then having said that spend
the next hour giving Him a shopping list of all that
we want. Were not talking about a certain form of
prayer here, but rather of a changed attitude and a
re-orientation of our mind so that God and His glory
are primary in our thinking now.
Centred in God
This is the way God created man. God Himself was
to be the head and man was to be like the body in
subjection to the head. In our body, the head is on
top not only physically, it also rules the body. As
long as our head is in control of our bodily functions,
we are all right. When a persons head (brain) is not
functioning properly, it is unable to control his body
and we would call such a person mentally deranged
or insane. God never intended man to be that way.
The Lord desires that we walk erect spiritually
(Leviticus 26:13). The problem with many believers is
that their head is not in the proper place. They dont
give God the place that He should have in their lives.
If God had first place in our lives, in our longings,
in our desires and in our ambitions, and if God and
His glory were the consuming passion of our lives,
that would express itself clearly every time we went
to God in prayer.
The reason why many things in our lives dont
fall into place, why theres confusion and chaos, is
26
Self-Centredness The Root of all Sin

God created everything in this universe to be centred
in Him.
27
God-Centred Praying
Consider the sun, the moon, the planets and the

stars. They have no will of their own. They obey their
Creator implicitly. The earth revolves around the
sun without any question. And the stars have been
moving in their appointed courses for thousands of
years. They have steadfastly remained in the path
that God ordained for them. But God does not delight
in inanimate objects like these. He wants sons.
He created the angels first with a free will. Lucifer,
the head of the angels, rebelled against God because
he did not want to be centred in God. Sin originated,
when a created being wanted to live a life centred in
himself (Isaiah 14:1215).
Its very important for us to understand this.
Because if we want to understand what sin is, we
have to see how it originated. Then well recognize
that sin is not just adultery, murder, anger or jealousy, etc. Sin finds its root in self-centredness.
It was self-centredness that made an angel into
a devil in a moment; and self-centredness will turn
people into devils today too.
It was self-centredness that turned Adam into a
sinful, fallen man. The two trees in the garden of
Eden the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of
good and evil symbolized two principles of life by
which Adam could live one, a life centred in God,
and the other a life centred in himself. Satan tempted
Eve to eat of the forbidden tree, saying, Your eyes
will be opened and you will be like God yourself.
Then you can live in independence of God. Adam
and Eve chose to live that life centred in themselves
and independent of God.
God does not ask us to be centred in Him because

he wants something for Himself. No. Its for our own
good that He asks us to put Him first in our lives.
If we do not worship God, we will certainly end up
worshipping something else either ourselves or
the devil or the world. And so it is to save us from
destroying ourselves by false worship, for our own
salvation and for our own good, that God says, Learn
to worship me. Learn to be centred in Me.
God created the earth to go around the sun. If
the earth decided one day that it had had enough
of going around the sun and now wanted the sun
to revolve around it, what would happen? The earth
would thereby disobey a law of God and there would
be no change of seasons, and all life on earth would
perish very soon. Disobeying Gods laws always leads
to death.
That was how spiritual death came into the world
too. God created man to be centred in Him. Man
refused to accept God as his Centre; and in that day
he died. When we realise this, well understand that
salvation means to be saved from being Self-centred.
The New Testament teaches that in order for a man
to be saved, he needs to repent first. Repentance
means turning from our old way of life. It means a
whole lot more than just giving up some bad habits,
like drinking and gambling, etc. Our old way of life
is a self-centred life; and repentance means saying,
Lord, Im tired of being centred in myself and I want
to turn to You now and to be centred in You.
28
29
God-Centred Praying
Salvation from Self-Centredness

Jesus came to save us from sin. In other words, He
came to save us from self-centredness.
Put the word self-centredness instead of the
word sin in the New Testament and youll see what
meaning comes up in many passages. Sin shall not
be master over you becomes Self-centredness will
not be master over you (Romans 6:14). Thats Gods
desire for His people.
And yet if we examine our lives, well find that even
in our most sacred desires, there is self-centredness.
To ask God to fill us with the Holy Spirit can be a
self-centred desire, if we want this power in order to
be a great preacher, or a great healer etc. Thats as
self-centred a desire as wanting to be great in this
world. Do you see how sin enters even into the most
holy place?
Thats why Jesus taught us to pray, first of all, not
even that we might be filled with the Spirit, but that
Gods name might be hallowed.
Only a truly spiritual man can pray this prayer in
sincerity. Anyone can repeat this prayer, of course.
Even a parrot can do that. But to really mean it, from
the depths of our hearts, will require a total devotion
to God, where He is first in our lives, where we are
centred in Him, and where we are not seeking His
blessing as much as Himself. If He gives us His gifts,
well and good; and if He does not give us any gifts
thats all right with us too, because we long for God
Himself, and not His gifts.
Why did God teach the Israelites to love Him
with all their hearts and to love their neighbour
30
as themselves? Only to deliver them from their

self-centredness.
There is an acrostic on the word joy that says,
Put J Jesus first, O others next, and
Yyourself last. Then you can have joy.
God is perpetually full of joy. There is no sorrow or
anxiety in heaven, because everything is centred in
God. The angels are always rejoicing, because they
are centred in God.
The reason we lack joy, peace, and so many other
spiritual virtues is because we havent found our
proper centre. We tend to use God for our own ends.
And even prayer becomes something like this, Lord,
please let my business prosper Help me to get a
promotion in my job Please let me get a better
house etc. We want God to become our servant,
helping to make our earthly lives more comfortable
like the genie in the story of Aladdin and his lamp.
This is the type of God that so many believers
pray to one who is a means to their own advancement and profit in this world. But the God of the
New Testament is not One Who helps you to win the
100 metres race in the Olympics or to outwit your
competitor in a business deal.
Our prayers reveal how self-centred we are.
Delight yourself in the Lord the Bible says, and
He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalms
37:4). To delight ourselves in the Lord is to put
God at the centre of our lives. And so it is only a
God-centred person who can have all the desires of
his heart.
31
God-Centred Praying
No good thing, will God withhold from those who

walk uprightly (that is, from those who are walking
with their head on top who have God controlling
their lives) (Psalm 84:11).
The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man
accomplishes much and the righteous man is the
God-centred man (James 5:16). On the contrary,
the fervent prayer of the self-centred man, even if he
prays all night is going to avail nothing. It is the type
of life we live that gives value to the prayer we pray.
Thats why the first three longings of our life should
be:
So the request is, Father, let your name be feared

and revered and honoured and glorified. In other
words, since this is the first petition, it implies that
the greatest longing of our hearts is that God will be
feared on the earth. Is that truly our greatest longing?
The guilt of man can be summed up in one
sentence: THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE
THEIR EYES (Romans 3:18). The fear of God is the
beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7). In other words,
it is the alphabet of the Christian life. If you dont
learn your ABCs you cant learn geometry, chemistry, physics, or anything else. In the same way if you
dont learn the ABC of the Christian life, the fear of
God, you can make no spiritual progress.
A good test of our spirituality is whether we are
more concerned about Gods Name than our own
name. If you hear that someone is ruining your name
how would you react? Vehemently perhaps? How do
you react when you realize that the Name of Jesus is
being dishonoured? The Name of God is blasphemed
among the heathen today because of the behaviour
of Gods people (Romans 2:24). Does that grieve us?
As you see the Name of Jesus Christ being dishonoured in India, does it hurt you? Has it ever brought
you down on your knees before God with a burden in
your heart that the Lords Name should be honoured
in our land. That is one test of our spirituality.
In Acts 17:16 we read that Pauls spirit was
stirred within him when he saw all the idols that the
Athenians worshipped. He was furious with Satan. If
we are filled with the Holy Spirit, well be stirred with
anger against Satan too when we see the idolatry in
our land.
Father, Your Name should be hallowed. Your

kingdom should come. Your will should be done.
We may have many other requests such as, Heal
me of my backache, help me to find a better house
to live in, help my son to get a job, etc. These are
all good requests. But if you can say, Father, even
if you dont grant these requests, my primary desire
is that Your Name will be glorified then youre a
spiritual man.
The Name of God being Honoured
What does this first request Hallowed be Thy Name
mean? The word hallowed comes from the same
root from which we get many other words in the New
Testament such as sanctify, holy, saint etc. It
means set apart that is, set apart from all that is
evil and unclean.
32
33
God-Centred Praying
Jesus spirit was stirred with anger when He saw

people making money in the name of God in the
temple. If we are in tune with God, well be angry too
at the dishonour that is brought to the Lords Name
in our land today, through people making money in
the Name of Christ.
Everything for Gods Glory
Consider 2 Kings 17:33, They feared the Lord and
served their own gods. Applying this to ourselves it
would mean that we symbolically worship God on
Sundays but actually worship our own idols all the
time.
We have all grown up considering certain activities
to be holy such as reading the Bible, praying, giving
out tracts, preaching, etc. Other activities like eating,
drinking, sleeping, talking and buying things from
the market, etc., we have considered to be secular.
The result of this type of thinking is that you may
feel that your religious activities have to be done
for Gods glory. But having done that you can live
another life in your home and in the world backbiting and gossiping and quarrelling with people etc.
Then when you go to the meetings a few days later,
you feel you must be holy once again. That is hypocrisy. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:31, Whether,
then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to
the glory of God. Every single activity in our life
must be done for the glory of God.
Nicholas Herman (more commonly known as
Brother Lawrence) was a cook in a monastery, many
years ago. He used to say,
34
Whether I am washing the dishes with all the

clatter of the plates around me or whether Im
working in the kitchen, I can preserve my soul
with as much serenity in Gods presence as when
I am on my knees partaking of the bread and the
cup.
That is to live in the presence of God at all times
realising that all that we do is holy.
Right Motives in Prayer
Understanding this petition in this prayer aright, will
affect the motives in our praying too. Very often our
prayers are not answered because they are offered
with wrong motives. But if a man really prays,
Hallowed be Thy Name as his primary request,
he cannot have a wrong motive in his prayers. His
prayer is Lord, no matter what my circumstances
may be, whether You grant my request or not, let
Your Name be glorified.
David once had a great longing to build a temple
for God. That was a good desire. But we read in 2
Samuel 7:1213, that God said, No, Im not going
to use you to build the temple. Im going to use
Solomon. And when David heard that, he didnt
become sour. He didnt complain. All that he said to
God was, May Thy Name may be magnified forever
(2 Samuel 7:26). David was quite prepared to be set
aside, if only Gods Name was glorified. Thats a good
example for all of us to follow.
Can we pray like this, Father, send a revival of
holiness to our country; and if you decide to start the
35
God-Centred Praying
revival through some other church, thats perfectly

OK by me. Send it at any cost. And if you decide not
to use me but someone else, thats fine too. Just let
Your Name be glorified.
It gets rid of a whole lot of selfish motives, when we
can truly pray, Father, hallowed be Thy Name at
any cost.
filled my soul, what we mean is that the desire of the

inhabitants of heaven has now become our desire
too.
Finally, lets look at Malachi 3:16:
Glorifying the Fathers Name

Remember the words of Jesus, The hour has come
for the Son of Man to fall into the ground like a grain
of wheat, to be trampled under foot by men and to
die. What shall I say? Shall I say Father save me
from this hour? No. Father, at any cost, even if it
means My death, glorify Thy Name (John 12:24, 27,
28Paraphrase).
Jesus practiced what he preached. Even if it meant
death, He wanted His Fathers Name to be glorified.
Thats why He could say to His Father at the end of
His earthly life, I have glorified Thee on earth (John
17:4).
Most believers never rise up to this level in all
their life. They know nothing of this wonderful
God-centred life; and therefore they know nothing
of what it means to be truly spiritual. Their spirit is
completely foreign to the spirit of heaven.
In heaven, everyones prayer is, Lord, let your
Name be glorified. If we dont partake of that spirit
now, how will we dwell in heaven for all eternity?
God wants us to partake of the spirit of heaven right
now, on earth. Thats why He has given us His Holy
Spirit. When we sing, Heaven came down and glory
36
Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one

another, and the Lord gave attention and heard
it, and a book of remembrance was written before
Him for those who fear the Lord and esteem His
Name.
God has a list of names of those who fear Him and
who are concerned about the honour of His Name.
And God says about these people that they are His
own possession, His special treasure, His jewels
(verses 17). God has a lot of earthenware pots in His
house, but Hes got some gold and silver vessels too!
(2 Timothy 2:20, 21).
All I can say is
I want my name to be in that book of remembrance that God has, of those who fear Him, who
are concerned about His Name, and whose greatest longing is that the Lords Name should be
glorified AT ANY COST.
That phrase that comes at the end of the third petition on earth, as it is in heaven applies to all the
first three petitions.
And so our prayer is,
Father, hallowed be Thy Name on earth as it
is in heaven. Just like the angels fear You and
37
God-Centred Praying
cover their faces and worship You saying, Holy,

Holy, Holy, I long with all my heart that my
fellow-believers and I will fear and reverence You
always. Amen.
Chapter 4
The Kingdom of God

Thy kingdom come
True salvation should give us a longing to be delivered from self-centredness, so that God now becomes
the centre of our lives and the centre of our petitions
in prayer. We who were wrong side up at one time,
have been straightened up by the Lord, so that we
long to put God first in every area of our lives now.
One of the clearest evidences of true spirituality is
that a man detests his self-centredness and longs to
be totally centred in God.
The man who comes to God wanting to be centred
in Him says,
Our Father, who art in heaven. The greatest
longing in my heart is that Your Name will be
glorified and reverenced throughout the earth.
Then he realizes that Gods Name is not being reverenced on earth and so he goes on to the next petition
and says,
38
39
God-Centred Praying
Father, I am longing for You to come and establish

Your kingdom on earth so that all the earth will
fear and reverence Your Name.
Thats a prayer that all men and women of God have
been praying for over 1900 years. The time has now
drawn near for it to be answered.
A Kingdom of Righteousness
Only one who is disgusted with the evil in this world
can pray this prayer. Peter says, We are looking for
new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13).
Look at the violence and immorality that there is
in the world today. As we read the newspapers, one
of the main prayers that should ascend from our
hearts is, Father, I long for Your kingdom to come.
I am not asking this for my personal comfort. I long
that your reign of righteousness will come soon, so
that Your Name will be glorified on this earth which
was created for Your glory.
Jesus said that the last days would be like the
days of Noah. Noah was one righteous man in the
midst of a corrupt and evil world. He was a preacher
of righteousness and he must have been disgusted
with what he saw around him (2 Peter 2:5). He longed
for righteousness from the depth of his heart, and
he preached it without compromise. And his prayer
must have been a similar one, Thy kingdom come.
All believers will acknowledge that Christ is coming
back soon to establish His kingdom on earth. But
40
The Kingdom of God
what is the evidence that we really believe this? It

says in 1 John 3:3,
And every one who has this hope fixed in Him
purifies himself, just as He is pure.
The proof that we really believe in Christs return
is that we get ready, preparing ourselves as a bride
for her bridegroom. This will mean a clean life, it
will mean paying our debts, it will mean settling
our quarrels right now, because we are purifying
ourselves as He is pure. Only such a man can pray
this prayer, Thy kingdom come.
To repeat this prayer without purifying ourselves to
be ready for Christs return, is to reduce this prayer
to a ritual.
Perpetual Readiness for His Coming
Some denominations in Christendom have a prayer
in their liturgy that says, Lord, save me from sudden
death. That prayer was obviously written by an
unconverted man for unconverted people. Self-centred
people naturally need some time before they die, in
order to settle their quarrels and to pay their debts, etc.,
before they face their Maker. They have no intention
of settling these matters as long as they are healthy.
Such people have no fear of God, and can never be
converted until they repent of their self-centredness.
A true Christian never needs to pray such a prayer,
because he is always ready. His accounts are always
up-to-date. And therefore he can always pray, Thy
kingdom come.
41
God-Centred Praying
The Kingdom of God
How can we know if were really eager for the

kingdom of God to come? Lets consider just one
area our home life.
Suppose one morning, as you looked out of your
window, you saw the Lord Jesus Christ Himself
walking towards your house. What would your reaction be? Thats a fairly good test of whether you are
ready for the coming of Gods kingdom or not.
Would you have to run and hide some of those
books in your library, because you dont want Jesus
to see them. Youd probably have to hide your TV set
too, if you have one.
As long as Jesus is staying with you, your conversation will no longer consist of the regular gossip that
usually characterizes your meal-table fellowship.
Would you have to be specially careful to be kind
and courteous during those days to your familymembers and to your servants, avoiding the rude
remarks that normally characterise your speech?
Would you be happy to let the Lord meet all your
friends, or would you hope that some of them dont
visit you while Jesus is with you?
Would you be glad to let Jesus stay on with you for
ever and ever like that? Or would you heave a sigh of
relief when at last His visit has come to an end and
He is gone?
Be honest with yourself.
One way of knowing the answer to that question
is by asking ourselves if our behaviour at home is
any different when we have guests staying with us,
whom we want to impress. If so, how much more
different our behaviour would have to be if Jesus
Himself came to stay with us for a few days!
It is meaningless to pray, Thy kingdom come if

we dont want Jesus to live with us and be Lord of
our homes everyday. After all, the kingdom of God is
a place where Jesus is going to be present as Lord
all the time and not just for a few days. If its going
to be a strain having Him in our home for just a few
days, how are we going to spend eternity with Him?
42
43
Treasures in Heaven
The man who prays, Thy kingdom come is one who
has set his mind and his affection and his desires on
things above. Hes not one who has put on a dress
of Christianity and holiness. His spirituality is not
superficial. It goes right through to the very fibre of
his being. He is more interested in laying up treasures in heaven than treasures on this earth.
A Christians attitude to money is one of the clearest tests of his spiritual level, and of whether he is
really longing for the kingdom of God to come or not.
I remember hearing a story of a farmer who told
his wife one day, Our cow has just given birth to
two calves, one a white one and the other a brown
one. And I thought that when theyve grown up,
we should give one of them to the Lord. His wife
asked him, Which one are you going to give to
the Lord, the brown one or the white one? He
replied, Well, we can decide that later when they
grow up.
The calves grew up and they became fatter and
fatter. One day the farmer came home with a
sad face and told his wife, Ive got sad news for
God-Centred Praying
you. The Lords calf just died. And his wife said,
But how did you know which was going to be
the Lords calf. You hadnt decided on that yet.
He said, Oh well, all along I had it in my mind to
give the brown calf to the Lord; and it just died
this morning.
It is like that with most believers. Its always the
Lords calf that dies! They give God whats left over
after all their own needs have been met. And because
theyre not rich towards God they remain spiritually poor all their lives (Luke 12:21).
In the Old Testament God had made a law that
the Israelites had to give their choice firstfruits to
the Lord (Exodus 23:19). This was the only way they
could honour the Lord (Proverbs 3:9). Its the same
today. We cannot honour the Lord if we dont give
Him our best.
What do we find in our life? Is there always some
excuse why we cannot give the best to God. Then
it shows where our heart really is. Where a mans
treasure is, there will his heart be also.
But the man who prays, Thy kingdom come, is a
man who has been delivered from the love of money
and material things. He lives for God and for eternity
now.
The Kingdom of God
If we want the kingdom of God to come, it must

first come in our hearts, in our homes, and in our
churches. In these places we must give no place to
Satan or to the flesh. Our longing should be that the
kingdom of God should so fill our hearts, our homes
and our churches that there will be no room there
for anything else.
The Holy Spirit came to bring the kingdom of God
with power to earth (Mark 9:1). Our local churches
should be a demonstration to the world today of what
the kingdom of God is like that which will one day
cover the whole earth. Here is where we have failed
the Lord.
When Jesus told us to seek Gods kingdom first
and not to be anxious about earthly things, what
He meant was that if we really wanted to be anxious
about something, we should be anxious that the
kingdom of God should come on earth as it is in
heaven (Matthew 6:33). How many of us are burdened
with that type of anxiety for the purity of the church
and the coming of Gods kingdom?
May God find many among us who will seek His
kingdom first.
The Absolute Rulership of God

The kingdom of God means the government of God,
the absolute rulership of God. It means making Jesus
Christ absolute Lord over every area of our life.
44
45
Chapter 5
The Will of God

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven
We can call Jesus Lord only when we are willing to
do His will in our daily life. True conversion takes
place, not when a man is stirred in his intellect and
his emotions, but when he yields his will saying,
Lord, not my will but Thine be done in my life. If we
maintain this attitude before the Lord consistently
then we shall be sanctified increasingly.
The Secret of Holiness
Jesus Himself prayed saying, Not My will but Thine,
to His Father all through His earthly life (John 6:38).
If it was necessary for even Jesus to live like that in
order to please the Father, we can be certain that
there is no other way for us to please God either. We
wont make any progress in our walk with the Lord if
this is not the consistent attitude of our lives.
We can spend hours praying and studying the
Scriptures and attending hundred of meetings. But
if all of that does not lead us to this point, where
we say, Thy will be done on earth (in our own life
47
God-Centred Praying
The Will of God
first of all) as it is in heaven, then weve wasted our

time. Every means of grace must lead us to the point
where we say from our heart, Father, not my will
but Thine be done.
The secret of true holiness lies here.
When Paul wrote to the Galatians about the conflict
between the flesh and the Spirit, he was referring to
this conflict of mans will with Gods will.
The flesh with all its lusts could be summed up
in one word: SELF-WILL. Wherever you read of the
desires of the flesh in the New Testament you could
replace that phrase with Self-will and self-centred
desires. Then youll understand what those verses
mean.
For example, were told that the Holy Spirit is in
opposition to the flesh (Galatians 5:17). What that
means is that the Spirit is always fighting against
our self-will and our self-centred desires. The Spirit
knows that without slaying our self-will and our selfcentred desires first, He can never fit us for heaven
or make us holy and Christ-like.
The way of holiness and sanctification is the way
of death to self saying No to myself and Yes to
God. It means saying, Father, I have no desires or
plans or ambitions outside the circle of Your will for
my life. I want nothing outside Your perfect will.
take up the cross is to say, Father, not my will but

Thine be done.
Only one who has said NO to his own will, his own
plans, his own desires and his own ambitions, etc.,
and who has said, Lord, I want to take up my cross,
die to my own desires and follow You and do Your
will alone can truly pray this prayer, Thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven.
Jesus said,
Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden,
and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28).
But He did not stop there. He went on to tell us how
He would give us that rest.
He said,
Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I
am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find
rest for your souls (Matthew 11:29).
Jesus said, If anyone wishes to come after Me, let

him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and
follow me (Luke 9:23). We find our cross at that
point where Gods will crosses our will every day. To
In other words, youll never know that rest until you

take up the cross and say No to your own will. All
unrest comes from doing our own will. You cannot
come to the Lord if you do not want to take up the
cross.
Only a true disciple can pray, Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus Himself prayed
this prayer all through His life. He practiced what He
preached. He lived as a man and his greatest longing
was to do the will of His Father.
Why did Jesus come to earth? The answer is: To do
the will of the Father. That was what He Himself said
48
49
The Cross in the Daily Life
God-Centred Praying
in John 6:38, For I have come down from heaven,

not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent
Me. He didnt come primarily to die for the sins of
the world. No. He came to do His Fathers will. He
went to Calvary and died only because that was part
of the Fathers will for His life.
Jesus said in John 4:34, My food is to do the will
of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work.
Just like a hungry man cries out for food, the whole
being of Jesus cried out to do the will of the Father.
To follow Jesus is to have a similar longing to do the
will of the Father in every area of our life.
The reason why theres so much happiness in
heaven and no sorrow at all, is because the will of
God is done completely there. Gods will is something
that makes people supremely happy and full of joy.
Peter writes, Since Christ suffered in the flesh,
arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because
he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,
so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer
for the lusts of men, but for THE WILL OF GOD
(1Peter 4:1, 2).
John the apostle writes, And the world is passing
away and also its lusts; but the one who does THE
WILL OF GOD abides forever (1 John 2:17).
The burden of the prayers of the apostles for the
believers was, that they might stand perfect and
fully assured in all THE WILL OF GOD (Colossians
4:12). Those apostles knew that
a salvation which consisted merely of the forgiveness of sins without leading a man to dedicate
50
The Will of God
the rest of his life to do the will of God, was a

false salvation.
Forgiveness of sins is only meant to be a door by
which we enter in to walk the narrow way of doing
all the will of God.
How Gods Will is Done in Heaven
We are to pray, Thy will be done on earth AS IT IS
IN HEAVEN. How is Gods will done in heaven? Let
me mention four things.
First of all, the angels are in a perpetual state of
WAITING UPON GOD for His commands. They dont
run around heaven trying to do `something for God
according to their own ideas. No. They wait for God
to speak first and only then do they act.
God says, Im looking for one who will wait and
watch For My beckoning hand, My eye Who will
work in My manner the work I give, And the work I
give not, pass by. And oh the joy that is brought to Me
When one such as this I can find A man who will do
ALL My will, Who is set to study his Masters mind.
So, when we pray Thy will be done on earth as it is
in heaven, it means, first of all that we want to hear
what God has to say to us.
Secondly, when God speaks, the angels obey
IMMEDIATELY. They dont say Lord, Ill wait a few
days and think about it. I want to find out what
my fellow angels think about this. Theres no such
thing in heaven. When God has spoken, that is final.
Obedience is immediate.
51
God-Centred Praying
Our prayer then should be,

Father, help me, that I dont delay when I hear
Your voice. I dont want to rush ahead of Your
time, but once You have spoken I want to obey
immediately.
Then thirdly, when God commands something in
heaven, it is done COMPLETELY. Those angels dont
go out and obey God partially. Our prayer therefore
should be,
Father, help me to do ALL your will in my life
to obey every commandment completely, whatever the cost.
And finally, the obedience of the angels is JOYFUL.
They are not grudging and complaining in their
obedience. No angel compares his task with anothers and says, Lord, why have You given me a more
difficult task than Youve given that angel etc.
We hear such complaints even among believers,
Why should I make all the sacrifices? What about
him/her, etc. But we never hear such words from
the angels in heaven. They consider it a privilege to
do anything for God and they rejoice at every opportunity to obey Him.
And so when we pray this prayer, we are asking
that Gods will may be done in our lives like that
joyfully and without any complaints and without any
comparisons with others.
52
The Will of God
No Regrets in Eternity
If you do the will of God like that on earth, you wont
have any regrets when you get to heaven.
Bye and bye, when we see our Lord face to face,
well wish we had given Him more of our lives and
that we had obeyed Him more completely. Heaven
will lose some of its sweetness for you if you get there
without having obeyed all of Gods commandments
here on earth, immediately, completely and joyfully.
Sadhu Sundar Singh used to say,
Youll never get another chance to carry the
cross for Christ once you leave this earth.
If you want to prove your love for the Lord, now is the
time to do it not when you get to heaven.
Think of the three petitions that we have looked
at. Father, Let your Name be hallowed, Let your
Kingdom come, Let your will be done on earth as it
is in heaven. Even before we ask for forgiveness of
sins, which is so necessary, the Lord taught us to
seek first the hallowing of the Fathers Name, the
coming of His kingdom and the fulfilling of His will
in our lives.
May we learn what the Lord is trying to teach us.
53
Chapter 6
Our Physical Needs

Give us this day our daily bread
God is interested in meeting all our bodily needs. But
these needs have to be met in such a way that we are
not harmed thereby. Material prosperity and physical blessing have a way of ruining people spiritually
if they dont know how to put God first in their lives.
Ten thousand rupees can be used very profitably by a mature, spiritual man; but it could ruin a
wayward, irresponsible boy.
And so God wants to get us centred in Him first,
before blessing us physically and materially.
Our Bodily Needs First
There are three petitions here in this prayer concerning our personal needs. The first one, amazingly
enough, is not a prayer for our spiritual welfare! Isnt
that interesting? The very first petition concerning
ourselves is not, Deliver us from spiritual evil, or
Give us victory over sin, or even Fill us with the
Holy Spirit. No. The first petition is, Lord, take care
of my bodily needs.
55
God-Centred Praying
The Bible says that man is a three-fold being. He

has a spirit, which enables him to contact God, a soul,
which is his personality, (his intelligence, emotion
and will) and his body (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
The three petitions here concern these three parts
of our being. The first one deals with the needs of our
body; the second deals with the guilt of sin that can
plague our minds (soul); and the third concerns our
spirit being delivered from spiritual evil. Our spirit is
the most important part of our being. Yet the Lord
taught us here to pray for our bodily needs first.
There are two extreme views that are found in
Christendom concerning the body. Some have the
ascetic view that teaches that unless the body is
subdued and denied every comfort, we cannot be
holy. But the body cannot be the cause of sin for
Satan who doesnt have a body is full of sin, while
Jesus Who has a body never sinned.
The ascetic teaching considers even the marriagerelationship as sinful. But remember that it was God
Who created sexual desire in man and He called it
Very Good (Genesis 1:31). The desire for food, for
rest and for sex, are all good and normal bodily desires
created by God. We dont have to be ashamed of any
of them. We only have to be careful that we dont
satisfy any of them in ways that God has forbidden.
The other extreme view found among some
Christians is that God wants us to be prosperous.
This results in a pampering of the body.
But the teaching of Jesus was neither the extreme
of asceticism, nor the extreme of indulgence and
materialism. It was caring for the bodys legitimate
needs so that it could be fit for Gods service.
56
Our Physical Needs
Gods Care for Our Bodies

It is because of the wrong idea that many believers
hold that God is not interested in our bodies that
they do not think of seeking God for healing when
they are sick. Like Asa, their faith is in doctors and
not in the Lord (2 Chronicles 16:12). God may use
doctors and medicines and even surgery to heal us.
We cannot dictate to Him how He should answer our
prayers. But He certainly doesnt expect His children to trust in men. God is greatly interested in our
bodies that they should be healthy and fit to be
used for His glory.
Here are three glorious truths that the Bible
teaches concerning our bodies:
i. if the body is for the Lord, the Lord is for the
body;
ii. our bodies are members of Christ; and
iii. our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit
(1Corinthians 6:1319).
We can certainly claim Gods power for our body
then.
The physical is certainly not more important than
the spiritual. Weve already seen that God should be
first in our lives and that everything else should be
secondary. But if we have truly prayed Hallowed be
Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done,
first, then it is right to say, Give us this day our
daily bread, next for we are asking for bread only
in order that we might glorify God by doing His will
on earth as it is done in heaven.
57
God-Centred Praying
Our Physical Needs
Our spiritual state is dependent to some extent on

our physical condition too. We read of Elijah that
after he had called down fire and rain from heaven,
he got discouraged and asked God to take away his
life. This courageous man, who could stand against
850 false prophets, fled in fear at the threat of one
woman, Jezebel (1 Kings 18, 19).
How did that happen? For over three years he had
lived all by himself. And now he was drained physically at the end of that strenuous day on Mount
Carmel. And when he sat discouraged under a
juniper tree, God didnt preach a sermon to him! No.
God sent an angel to him with food and drink. Elijah
ate and drank and slept. And when he woke up, God
gave him some more food and drink (1 Kings 19:18).
God knew that Elijah was tired and exhausted and
that what he needed was nourishment, not exhortation. Thats what we need at times too not long
sermons but some good food and rest.
he admitted it. He was not ashamed of His bodily

needs. Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and
we must take care of it.
God is interested in providing us all that we need
for our bodies. He knows that we need food, clothing and shelter for our life on earth. And if He hasnt
seen it fit to allow you to own your own house, you
can be certain that Hes interested in enabling you
to rent one. He Who sought out a resting-place for
the Israelites in the wilderness can certainly find one
for you too (Numbers 10:33). Lets not think of these
as unspiritual things that we shouldnt ever ask God
for.
It was in order to correct the wrong understanding
of God that people had, that Jesus put the request
for physical needs first, among the last three petitions in this prayer.
Some Christians have a super-spiritual attitude

towards their bodies and say, I want to burn out
for God. And they go about doing their service for
God, morning, noon and night, seven days of the
week every week. And then they get exhausted and
depressed! Their activity was soulish activity. Their
depression has a physical cause, not a spiritual one.
The Lord has to tell such people, Come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest awhile (Mark6:31).
Once when Jesus was travelling in a boat, we
read that He was sleeping. He was obviously tired
and He was not ashamed to be seen sleeping. There
were times when He was thirsty and hungry, and
All our physical needs are summed up in this petition, Give us this day our daily bread. Implied in
that request is, Give me a job. Give me a house to
live in. Give me and my family clothes to wear. Give
my children education, because one day they have
to get their daily bread too. God is interested in all
these matters. And if we learn to seek the kingdom of
God first, these things will be added to us.
58
59
Gods Care for Our Earthly Necessities
Do you know why we are so worried about all these

earthly things food, clothing, job, house, childrens
education, etc.? Because deep down in our heart we
have a feeling that God is not really interested in
God-Centred Praying
Our Physical Needs
helping us with these material things. We feel that

God is interested only in our spiritual welfare.
If only the Holy Spirit could convince us once and
for all, that God is interested in every part of us
spirit, soul and body! God wants us to ask Him for
our earthly needs and He doesnt ever want us to
be worried. Thats why the Bible says, Be anxious
for nothing, but in everything in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made
known to God (Philippians 4:6).
An earthly father is not obliged to provide for the
needs of everyone around him. But he is certainly
obliged to provide for his own family. God is so good
that He provides food even for the birds. How much
more He will provide the needs of His own children!
Once when a Canaanite woman asked Jesus to heal
her daughter, Jesus said, Let the children be satisfied first (Mark 7:27). She replied that she would be
happy with just the crumbs that fell from the table.
And her daughter was completely delivered. Think of
that. The crumbs were enough to bring freedom from
demon-possession. Imagine then what a whole loaf
of bread could do for us who are Gods children! And
remember that Jesus said, Let the CHILDREN be
satisfied FIRST. And so we pray with boldness, Our
Father, give us this day our daily bread.
all your NEED (Philippians 4:19) not all that we

WANT, but all that we NEED. Theres a lot of difference between what we may want and what we need.
You may want a car, but God may see that you dont
need one and so He wont give you one. Somebody
else may need one and He may give a car to him. You
dont have to envy him and you dont have to grumble
against God. Be satisfied with what you have. Dont
ask for luxuries. If God gives us some luxuries we
can receive them and use them for His glory. But if
he doesnt give us any, well still praise the Lord.
Lets not compare ourselves with others. God
knows what is best for us. If we ask Him for bread He
wont give us a stone, and if we ask Him for a stone
He wont give us a stone. Hell give us bread instead!
Be content with His provision. One of the secrets
of Pauls life was that he was absolutely content. In
Philippians 4:11 he says, I have learned to be content
in whatever circumstances I am.
Daily Provision
Notice here, that Jesus didnt teach us to ask for

luxuries. We are not praying, Father, give us this
day our daily ice-cream, but Give us this day our
daily bread! The promise is, My God shall supply
The prayer is Give us this day our DAILY bread.

God may give us bread for many days at a time, but
the petition here is only for one single days physical necessities. Jesus told us not be anxious even
about what was going to happen tomorrow. God
doesnt want us to worry about the future. We are to
be dependent upon Him, day by day.
The Lord taught this lesson to the Israelites in the
wilderness in a wonderful way. They had to go out
and collect the manna every morning. They couldnt
collect it for a number of days at a time. They were
60
61
Contentment with Gods Provision
God-Centred Praying
Our Physical Needs
to be dependent upon God day by day. They had to

live like that for forty years. Do you think that was
a strain? No. Im sure it wasnt. It must have been
exciting!
If God gave us too much at a time, our hearts
would drift away from Him. And so God orders the
circumstances of our lives in such a way that often
some need arises in the physical realm because the
physical often touches us much more than the spiritual. God allows the needs to come so that we turn
to Him again and again. Thus we learn the lesson of
perpetual dependence on God.
Even though the manna dropped from heaven,
God didnt drop it straight into their mouths! The
Israelites had to go out early in the morning and
collect it. The lazy person would have got nothing.
And so, when we pray Give us this day our daily
bread, were not asking God to do some miracle and
supply us our needs without our doing any work. No.
The Bible says that if a man will not work he should
not eat either (2 Thessalonians 3:10). Jesus said
that God feeds the birds. But He doesnt drop food
into their mouths. They have to go out and search for
their food. And so God expects us to be hard working
too and to trust Him. Faith is no substitute for
hard work.
When sick people have asked me to pray for their

healing, I have often wondered, Does he want health
so that he can be strong enough to serve God? Or
does he want it to live for himself? Should we ask
God to heal him so that he can live for the world?
Jesus taught us to pray for our physical needs so
that we may do Gods will and not our own.
Health to do Gods Will

This prayer is also connected with the previous
petition: Thy will be done on earth as it is done in
heaven. Were asking God for physical health and
strength so that we can do His will.
62
A Family Prayer
Notice also that the prayer is Give US and not Give
ME.
The one who puts God first in his life will find
that he cant put himself second. We are members
of a family sitting around our Fathers table; and
the Father doesnt want any selfish children at His
table who grab all the dishes for themselves without
considering whether others at the table have enough
to eat. Such behaviour is bad manners even for the
unconverted. How much more for a Christian!
Remember what Jesus said about the day of judgment. When He sits on His throne to judge the people,
He will tell many of them, You saw Me hungry, but
you never fed Me. You saw Me naked but you never
clothed Me. You knew I was sick but you never
visited Me. And they will say, Lord, when was this?
We never saw You naked or hungry. And the Lord
will reply, I live in those who are born again; and
when you saw that brother of Mine in need, you did
not recognize that it was I who was in need. It was
I who was hungry and thirsty (Matthew 25:3146
- paraphrase).
63
God-Centred Praying
Our Physical Needs
This is one of the fundamental differences between

heaven and hell. Hell is full of sin, full of self-
centredness. Each man lives for himself, with no
room for God or for others. In heaven, its the other
way around. God is first and others are next.
Ive heard a story of a man who had a dream which
was a parable of hell and heaven. He first went to
hell; and there he saw everyone sitting at a table
with plenty of delicious food in front of them. But
yet, they were all skinny and sick and miserable.
He discovered that they couldnt eat the food that
was set before them, because they all had four-foot
long spoons attached to their hands. And of course
when you have a four-foot spoon tied to your hand
its impossible to eat whats in front of you.
Then in his dream this man went up to heaven and
there he saw the same delicious food on the table;
and the people sitting around the table in heaven
also had these four-foot long spoons attached to
their hands. But here they were all healthy and
strong. And he asked one of them, How are you all
so healthy and strong? And the man replied, Well,
you see, I realize that I cant feed myself. So I stretch
out my hand and feed someone sitting further down
the table, and someone else further up the table
feeds me with his spoon; and in this way everyone of
us gets enough to eat.
And so this man went back to hell, in his dream,
and told the people there, Heres the way for all of
you to eat. Each of you should allow someone else to
eat out of your plate and feed someone else further
down the table. But they all gave him the same
reply. I wont let anyone eat from my plate, each

of them said, for how can I know that someone else
will allow me to eat from his plate!
Its that kind of dog in the manger selfishness
that is characteristic of hell and of all who finally
go there. All theyre interested in is their OWN daily
bread.
If you dont have a concern for your brothers and
sisters in Christ, you cant pray this prayer, for your
daily bread.
There was a time in Abrahams life, when he had
waited twenty-five years to get a son through Sarah
and he still hadnt received that child. He had prayed
and prayed. No answer had come. Then when he
was in Gerar, He noticed that God had judged the
people there, by making their wives barren. Abraham
immediately prayed for those women that God would
give them children (Genesis 20:17). Remember that
Abrahams prayers for his own wife had still not been
answered. God heard Abrahams prayer and gave
children to those barren women. But did God stop
there? No. He gave Sarah her promised son at that
time too (Genesis 21:1). As Abraham prayed for other
people, God met his own need as well!
Those who think of God first and others next, get
Gods best. The Lord restored the fortunes of Job
when he prayed for his friends (Job 42:10). That is
Gods way.
This petition concerning our physical needs, is
sandwiched between two other petitions. On one
side is, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,
and on the other, Forgive us our sins just as weve
forgiven others whove sinned against us. Are you
64
65
God-Centred Praying
eager to do the will of God and to forgive others who

have harmed you? Or are you like the little child who
when given a cream biscuit, wanted to eat only the
cream between the two biscuits? Are you interested
only in your material needs being met Give us our
daily bread neglecting the petitions before and
after it?
So we see Christians at two extremes. Some are so
super-spiritual that they feel its wrong to pray for
material things. Others pray concerning their physical and material needs alone.
Blessed are those who understand the balance
that Jesus taught.
Chapter 7
Forgiveness of Sins
Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors
Sin is a debt to God whether that sin be a coming
short of Gods standards or a trespassing and going
beyond what God has permitted.
The Value of Conscience
Only man, of all created beings on this earth, feels
the guilt of having done something wrong. This is
one feature that distinguishes him from animals.
A dog doesnt feel guilty if it has done something
wrong, unless it has been trained by its master to
feel guilt. But with man, you can go to the jungles,
among those who have never heard anything about
religion, those who have never been taught by
anyone, those who have never come across a Bible,
and you will find people there feeling guilty. Their
conscience tells them that they have grieved their
Creator and so they try to appease Him in some way.
But youll never find a religious monkey or a religious dog anywhere!
66
67
God-Centred Praying
Forgiveness of Sins
Our conscience is one of Gods greatest gifts to us.

It warns us when something is wrong in our relationship with God just like pain warns us that
something is wrong in our body. We must be careful
therefore to maintain a sensitive conscience at all
times.
God and tried to hide from Him. What foolishness!

Could Adam and Eve hide from Almighty God behind
a tree? Sin certainly makes a man foolish.
A second characteristic of man is to put the blame
for his sins on others. When God uncovered Adams
sin, He asked him, Did you eat of this tree? What
was Adams reply? Adam blamed his wife. And his
wife blamed the serpent!
That nature has come down to all of us from Adam
and Eve. Were always trying to justify ourselves,
claiming that were not responsible for the mistakes
weve made. And when we are caught red-handed,
we say that we did it in a moment of weakness and
pressure. We seek to cover up our sins instead of
confessing them. And thats why we cannot get Gods
forgiveness.
Honest Confession of Sin

There are many people who say, Father forgive us
our sins, who dont realise that we cant ask God to
forgive us unless we have confessed our sins to Him
first. We have to acknowledge our sins with absolute
honesty.
Gods Word says, He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, (Proverbs 28:13). One who
conceals his sins may pray, Forgive me, forgive me.
But he wont be forgiven. The verse goes on to say,
but he who confesses and forsakes them will
find mercy. The Bible also says, If we confess our
sins (that is our part) He (God) is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness (that is Gods part) (1 John 1:9). If
we do our part, we can be certain that God will be
faithful to do His!
Ever since Adam fell into sin, man has had a tendency
to cover up his sin rather than to confess it. When
Adam and Eve sinned, what was their first reaction?
Was it to run to God at once and to say, Oh God,
we have sinned, we have done what You told us not
to do? No. They didnt do that. They ran away from
68
Walking in the Light

When Jesus talked about coming into the light, He
said, Men loved the darkness rather than the light
because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does
EVIL hates the light, and does not come to the light,
lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who practices the TRUTH comes to the light (John 3:1921).
Notice the difference there! On one side, Jesus said
that everyone who does EVIL hates the light. The
opposite of evil being good, one would think that
Jesus would go on to say that everyone who does
GOOD comes to the light. But thats not what He
said. He said that everyone who practises the TRUTH
comes to the light.
69
God-Centred Praying
Forgiveness of Sins
Did you notice the difference? What Jesus asks

us for is not goodness first, but truth reality and
honesty. In other words, Jesus said, The man who
is evil is dishonest. But the man who comes into the
light although not perfect, is an honest man. If we
could come into the light only when we are perfectly
good, then none of us would ever be able to come
into it. But God invites people to come to Him who
are honest. These honest people will then become
good progressively.
We can pray this prayer, Forgive us our sins only
if we are willing to be honest. You may be imperfect but you can still come into Gods light if youre
honest about your imperfections. Everyone who does
the truth, who is honest, can come into the light and
acknowledge his sin and then that sin will be blotted
out.
The light does not cleanse my shirt. The light only

exposes the fact that my shirt is dirty. Thats being
honest about what I see within myself, instead of
trying to hide it. That is the fundamental meaning of
coming into the light.
We need to understand this clearly, because this
applies not only to our relationship with God but
also to our relationship with our fellow men.
In Christianity there is a vertical relationship with
God and there is a horizontal relationship with our
fellow-believers. You cant have one without the
other. You cant have fellowship with God if youre
not in fellowship with your fellow- believers.
If someone says I love God and hates his brother,
he is a liar (1 John 4:20). If you really love God,
youll love your brother too.
If we walk in the light as He Himself is in the

light, we have fellowship with one another, and
the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all
sin (1 John 1:7).
A Right Horizontal Relationship
Let me use an illustration. Supposing it was dark all

around me. To come into the light would mean that
I expose myself. If my shirt is dirty, it will be seen.
Just as we have to confess to God the things that we

have done that have wronged Him, we have also got
to confess to our fellow-men the things that we have
done that have wronged them. There is no forgiveness without such confession.
If we have cheated someone of money, we must
return it. Otherwise, God cannot forgive us. The only
way by which we show that we have truly repented is
by confessing to the person whom we have wronged
and by giving back that which we have taken
wrongfully.
If you have travelled in the trains without a ticket,
its easy just to go to God and say, Im sorry, Ive
cheated the railways. But the costly way the way
70
71
There are many who go around claiming the last

part of that verse, The blood of Jesus cleanses us
from all sin. But its not correct to quote it like that.
The blood of Jesus cleanses only those who fulfil the
condition mentioned in the first part of that verse
those who walk in the light.
God-Centred Praying
Forgiveness of Sins
you prove that you have really repented is by

going to the railway counter, buying a ticket for that
journey and tearing up that ticket. Otherwise your
repentance is just empty words.
that office, you must humble yourself and go to

him and say, Im sorry. That was my mistake.
Please forgive me. Nothing less than that is true
Christianity.
Here lies the reason why many people dont enter

into a deep fellowship with God. They repent only
with their lips and not with their heart. They confess
their sins to Him. But they dont confess to their
fellowmen when they have sinned against them.
To say to someone, Im sorry, that was my mistake.
Please forgive me, is one of the most difficult things
to say. Why? Because it slays our ego. We are all
basically proud people and we dont like to humble
ourselves and admit that weve made a mistake!
Why is it that we feel so free to confess our sins to
a holy God but find it difficult to confess our sin to an
unholy brother? The reason could be that when we go
into our room and claim to be confessing to God, we
may be actually confessing only to ourselves! We are
not confessing to God at all. We are fooling ourselves.
The test of whether you have really humbled yourself
before God is whether you are willing to apologise to
any human being whom youve hurt.
In Indian culture, there is the idea that only wives
have to ask forgiveness from their husbands never
vice-versa. Its as though the man belonged to some
superior species!!
There are people with broken relationships in many

churches who dont go to one another to settle the
matter. They have grudges against each other and
wont visit one another. And yet they call themselves
Christians! Theyre not Christians at all. If such
people think that they are in the kingdom of God,
they are only deceiving themselves.
If youre not willing to talk with or visit a brother
and yet take part in the breaking of bread, thats
blasphemy. We cannot have fellowship with God on
those terms. You cant have a vertical relationship
with God when your horizontal relationship with
your fellow-believers is not right.
But when we have truly confessed to God and
men, then God will cleanse us so thoroughly that the
memory of our past will no longer be before Him. And
if HE does not remember our past sins any more,
why should we think about them (Hebrews 8:12)?
Perfect Forgiveness
There is just no such thing as being superior

or inferior, when it comes to asking forgiveness. Even if you are the director of an office,
and you have wronged the junior-most person in
The Bible says that we are justified by the blood

of Jesus Christ (Romans 5:9). When God cleanses
us He justifies us too. That word justified means,
Just as if Id never sinned in my life and just as if I
am perfectly righteous now. How wonderful!
We can picture our sins like many words written
on a blackboard. Now that board has been wiped
72
73
God-Centred Praying
Forgiveness of Sins
clean with a wet cloth. When you look at the blackboard now what do you see? Nothing. It is just as if
nothing had ever been written on it at any time. That
is how the blood of Jesus cleanses us thoroughly
and completely.
If we have truly confessed our sins to God, then
having confessed them once is enough. God blots
them out immediately. And His promise is, I WILL
REMEMBER THEIR SINS NO MORE. (Hebrews
8:12). What rest comes into our heart when we realize
that weve been truly forgiven and that we dont have
to confess our sins again and again to the Lord.
Let me add that it is best when we pray Forgive us
our sins, to be specific. Many people pray in a general
way, Lord, I may have committed so many sins.
That means theyre not sure. Its no use confessing
like that; because youre implying that perhaps you
havent sinned at all!
It is best to be specific, and to say, Lord, this is the
sin. Ive had a grudge against that person. I havent
forgiven that person. Ive been jealous of that person.
My motive in doing that was utterly selfish. I did it
for my own glory, etc. You have to be honest.
And after we have confessed all the sins that we
know, well still have to pray like David, Acquit me
of hidden sins for we have all sinned in ways that
we are not conscious of (Psalms 19:12).
Have you noticed that?

Out of the six petitions in this prayer, Jesus
emphasised one especially at the end. He said,
If you forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly
Father will also forgive you. But if you do not
forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly Father
will also not forgive you (Matthew 6:14, 15).
This petition for forgiveness is one of the most important petitions in this prayer because it is the only
petition that Jesus repeated at the end of His prayer.
Many Christians do not enjoy full and free fellowship

with God because they have not taken this petition
seriously.
Jesus taught a parable of a king who checked up
the accounts of his servants one day and discovered
that there was one who owed him 40 million rupees.
And when that servant said, Ive got no money sir,
please forgive me, the king forgave him completely.
That man went out, and found another servant who
owed him just 40 rupees; and he caught him by the
throat and sued him and put him in jail. When the
king heard that, he called the unmerciful servant
and said, I forgave you 40 million rupees so freely.
Couldnt you forgive that man 40 rupees? And he
handed him over to the torturers. Then Jesus said,
So will My heavenly Father also do to you, if each
of you does not forgive his brother from your heart
(Matthew 18:35). The torturers are evil spirits who
are permitted to harass us until we learn to be merciful to others.
Jesus used this parable to illustrate how great the
debt is that God has forgiven us, and how unmerciful and evil it is for us not to forgive someone who
has hurt us.
74
75
Forgiving Others
God-Centred Praying
Forgiveness of Sins
Has someone done you some harm? Maybe

someone has spread false stories about you. Maybe
your neighbour, or your wife, or your father or your
mother-in-law has done you some harm. Maybe they
have ruined your life in some way. Maybe the doctor
who operated on you made a mistake that has caused
you untold suffering. But the Lord says that all those
sins put together are so tiny compared to the debt
you had to God and which God forgave you. So there
is absolutely no reason why you should not be able
to forgive all those people freely from your heart.
The important part of Matthew 18:35 is from your
heart. If you are not willing to forgive your fellowman from your heart, dont waste your time coming
to God and saying, Forgive us our trespasses, for
God wont listen to your prayer. If there is one single
soul in the whole world whom you havent forgiven,
you cannot be forgiven yourself; and youll be lost
eternally for no unforgiven soul can ever enter Gods
presence. This is far more serious than we realise.
The prayer is, Forgive us AS WE HAVE forgiven
others. God sees exactly how we have forgiven
others. Jesus taught that God gives us in the SAME
measure as we give to others. He said, Give, and it
will be given to you; good measure, pressed down and
shaken together, running over, they will pour into
your lap. For BY YOUR STANDARD OF MEASURE
IT WILL BE MEASURED TO YOU IN RETURN
(Luke6:38).
That means that if you use a small spoon to
give to others, God will use that very same spoon
when answering your prayers. So when we pray
for something great and mighty from God and God

takes a small spoon and gives us only a little bit, the
reason usually is that we have used that same spoon
to give to others. The larger the spoon we use to give
to others, the larger the spoon God will use to give
to us. This is an unchanging principle in Gods dealings with us.
76
77
Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive

mercy (Matthew 5:7).
The more merciful you are to others, the more merciful God will be to you in the day of judgment. But
judgment will be merciless to one who has shown
no mercy (James 2:13).
And so, if you forgive others in a mean, stingy way,
God will forgive you in the same way too. But if you
give those who have harmed you a warm, forgiving
look, God will give you a warm, forgiving look too.
God will treat you exactly as you treat others.
Setting Relationships Right
Jesus said that when you bring your gifts to the altar,
when you come to pray to God, or to put money into
the offering box, and there remember that youve
hurt your brother, you should, FIRST be reconciled
to your brother and then come and present your
offering (Matthew 5:2224). Otherwise God wont
accept your money or your prayer.
God-Centred Praying
Forgiveness of Sins
The Old Covenant standard was just: YOU

shall not bear any grudge against your neighbour
(Leviticus 19:18). That was easy to keep.
But the New Covenant standard is higher. Jesus
said, If YOUR BROTHER has a grudge against you,
go and set it right. Of course, there will always be
brothers who have something against us for no fault
of ours. Jesus and the apostles had many enemies
because they stood for the truth. But here, in the
context, Jesus is referring to a brother who has a
grudge against us because WE spoke to him rudely
(Matthew 5:22). Its a grudge caused by something
sinful that WE did. In such cases, we must go to him
first, confessing our sin and asking him for forgiveness. Only then can we bring our offering to God.
If we go to God and say, Lord, I want the fullness
of new-covenant power in my life, the Lord will say,
When I give you new-covenant power, it will bring
with it new-covenant responsibilities.
Many Christians do not enjoy new-covenant power,
because they are living by old covenant standards.
They remain powerless because they are unwilling to
go and ask for forgiveness from someone.
One of the features of hell is that there is no mercy

there. And in the measure in which you lack mercy in
your heart towards others, in that measure you have
got a little bit of hell right inside your heart. If you
are unwilling to forgive someone, youve got a little
bit of hell inside you. You may be considered very
pious by others, because of all your religious activity. But youve got this little bit of hell right inside
you all the time. And you cant go to heaven in that
condition because you cant take hell into heaven.
Youve got to get rid of it before you leave this earth.
Thats why the Lord taught us to pray, Forgive
us in exactly the same way that we have forgiven
others.
When we dont forgive others, it can affect our
bodies too. Disobedience to Gods laws often brings
physical suffering.
If you bear a grudge against someone in your heart
or if youre jealous of someone, and thus violate Gods
law of love, it can finally begin to affect your body.
There are Christians today suffering from arthritis,
migraine, rheumatism and asthma etc., who cant
be healed just because they have a grudge against
someone. They may take any number of pills but
theyre not going to be healed until they learn to
forgive. The cause of such diseases is not organic.
Its not in their body. It is in their soul.
If you have not forgiven your brother or sister, God
will not listen to your prayer. The Bible says in Psalm
66:18: If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord
will not hear. Its not only that He doesnt answer,
he doesnt even HEAR.
Being Merciful
We all have a flesh and we are living among others
who have a flesh. And so we are constantly liable
to injure one another knowingly and unknowingly.
The only place where well never get hurt by anyone
is in heaven. And so we need to forgive one another
as long as we live on this earth. To err is human, to
forgive is divine.
78
79
God-Centred Praying
Lets not fool ourselves. True forgiveness follows

brokenness and confession, and that involves a
recognition of the rottenness of our flesh, a willingness to make any restitution and to ask anyones
forgiveness if necessary, if only our relationship with
God can be straightened out.
Finally, remember that the petition is Forgive US.
We want our brothers to be forgiven too. Sometimes,
its possible to have a secret hope that a brother
will be judged by God for the way he has treated us.
Such an attitude is Satanic for its only the devil
who wants people to be punished by God.
Jesus said, I have washed your feet and you must
wash one anothers feet (John 13:14). That means
that when you see dirt on your brothers feet (spiritually speaking), you must long for him to be cleansed
too.
Forgive US means,
Father, I wont be satisfied if you just forgive
me my sins. There are other brothers and sisters
around me. I want you to forgive them their sins
too. Amen.
Chapter 8
Freedom from Evil

Do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil
There are two sides to this petition one, asking God
to protect us, and the other, asking Him to deliverus.
Having prayed for deliverance from the guilt of sin
in the previous petition, we now pray for deliverance
from the power of sin. If we desire only forgiveness
and not freedom from sin, it would indicate that our
repentance has not been proper. Forgiveness of sins,
is meant to be a gateway that leads on to a holy life,
and not to a taking advantage of the grace of God.
Happiness and Power
All Christians seek to be happy. But Jesus said,
Blessed are the pure in heart (Matthew 5:8). The
word blessed also means happy. So what Jesus was
saying was that true happiness flows from true holiness. If heaven is a place of infinite happiness, its
only because its a place of perfect holiness as well.
Happiness without holiness is a counterfeit.
We should actually pray that God would make us
80
81
God-Centred Praying
Freedom from Evil
unhappy if we are unholy. For otherwise we would

be deceived about our spiritual state.
Many Christians seek God for power in their
lives. But again this should not be divorced from an
equally great longing for holiness. Otherwise it can
be dangerous. For God to give power into the hands
of an unholy man can be more dangerous than a
surgeon operating with an unsterile instrument.
That would bring death instead of life.
Thats why God cannot give too much of His power
to many Christians. It would ruin and destroy them.
We need to thank God that He hasnt given us all
the supernatural gifts that we asked Him for! There
are many cases of believers who have been destroyed
by the gifts that they received, because they were
not humble and holy enough to use them aright.
We should long for holiness and power in the same
measure. Only then are we safe.
Otherwise, we would remain fat and flabby. Its

exactly the same in the spiritual realm. We need
resistance if we are to be strong spiritually. And this
is why God permits Satan to tempt us.
The man who has an easy way through life, will
be spiritually weak, flabby and impoverished. He
wont be able to do all that God wants him to do.
But the one who has gone through trials and testing
successfully, will be strong and capable of doing all
the will of God.
Thats one reason at least, why God hasnt
destroyed Satan.
Why did God place one forbidden tree in the garden
of Eden? Some may feel that if God hadnt kept that
tree there, Adam would never have sinned. But that
tree was necessary for Adam to become holy. There
can be no holiness for man without temptation.
Thats why God permitted Satan to enter the garden
of Eden.
Adam was innocent but innocence is not holiness. Adam would have remained innocent all his
life and never become holy if he had not been tested.
Innocence is a state of neutrality, and from that state
of neutrality to become positively holy, Adam had to
exercise a choice. He had to say No to temptation
and Yes to God. Only then would he become holy.
And so he had to be tempted. Unfortunately, he said
No to God and therefore became a sinner.
How God Uses Satan

True holiness is the result of a battle. It doesnt come
to the armchair Christian who wants to sit back and
be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease. It
is only as we fight the battle against our lusts and
against Satan that we become holy.
We may then ask the question, If the devil is such
a hindrance to our holiness, why doesnt God destroy
him?
The answer to that is that the devil is, in a sense,
necessary for our spiritual growth just as a furnace is
necessary to purify gold. Its only when our muscles
are subjected to resistance, that they become strong.
82
Temptation and Sin

Jesus too was tempted in all things as we are
(Hebrews 4:15). But the difference between Him and
83
God-Centred Praying
Freedom from Evil
Adam was that He always said Yes to God. In order

to be a perfect man, the type of man that God wanted
all men to be like, Jesus had to learn obedience from
the things which He suffered. He faced temptation
and overcame, and thereby, was made perfect
(Hebrews 5:8, 9).
That was why Jesus prayed for His disciples
saying, Father. I do not ask Thee to take them out of
the world, but to keep them from evil (John 17:15).
Jesus knew that His disciples could never become
holy if they were taken away from the pressures and
trials and temptations that they would face in this
world.
We need to distinguish between temptation and
sin. If we are suddenly tempted by something that
we see accidentally, thats not sin. But if we continue
to look at what tempts us, or to think about it, then
we sin. We cant avoid being tempted. But we can
certainly choose to turn our eyes and our mind away
from what tempts us. Its the way we exercise our
will that determines whether we are holy or sinful.
God doesnt hold us guilty for being tempted.
But He certainly wants us to resist temptation. As
someone has said, I cant prevent the birds from
flying over my head, but I can prevent them from
making a nest in my hair. You cant prevent temptation from coming to you but you can prevent it from
settling down in your mind!
Gods Word does not teach that we should face as
many temptations as possible in order to show how
strong we are. No. We are to run away from temptation. Paul tells Timothy to flee from the things that
tempt him (2 Timothy 2:22). We must run away from
the love of money, from flirtatious women and from

anything that will lead us away from God.
Our attitude to temptation should be, Let me keep
myself as far away from it as possible. We are not
to be like little children who try to find out how near
the edge of a cliff they can go without falling down,
or how close to the edge of the railway platform they
can stand without the train knocking them over.
Thats not the advice any sensible parent will give
his child. We tell our children to keep far away from
such dangers. Thats what God tells us too.
This petition really means, Father, dont allow me
to face temptation that is too strong for me. It is the
cry of one who knows that his flesh is weak, and who
realises that he can easily fall.
84
85
Being Prepared to Face Temptation

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus told Peter,
James and John, Keep watching and praying, that
you may not enter into temptation (Matthew 26:41).
Jesus knew that there was temptation ahead of
them and He sought to prepare them. But instead
of praying, they went to sleep. As a result, when the
temptation came, Peter chopped off a soldiers ear.
He fell into sin, because he had not watched and
prayed. Jesus however, conducted Himself in a pure
and loving way because He had prayed.
God is always faithful to warn us in advance. All of
us must have, at sometime or the other, heard the
voice of the Spirit in our hearts saying, Spend a few
moments in prayer now. Did you recognize that as
God-Centred Praying
Freedom from Evil
the voice of God seeking to prepare you for some

temptation that lay ahead of you at that time?
What have you usually done at such times? Like
the disciples you may have ignored that voice. And
when the temptation came you fell. God had tried
to prepare you for the temptation. But you had not
listened.
at temptation and trial like that, we can overcome

everything that comes to us.
God has also promised to write His laws upon our
hearts and in our minds (Hebrews 8:10). He works
in us through His Spirit both TO WILL and TO DO
His perfect will (Philippians 2:13). So we need never
be defeated.
Every Temptation Can Be Overcome
Deliverance from Sins Power
God has given us a wonderful promise in His Word

that He will never allow any trial or temptation to
come to us that is too much for us to bear or overcome (1 Corinthians 10:13). In other words, He will
check each trial and temptation to see if we are
capable of overcoming it. Only then will He permit
it to come to us. A good teacher would never give
a 9th-standard examination paper to a 2nd-standard
student. He would only give a paper corresponding
to the students standard. So does God.
In the light of this verse, is it right then to feel that
any temptation or trial that you face is too strong
for you? No. It is obvious that God doesnt think so.
Otherwise he wouldnt have allowed it to come to
you. The very fact that God has allowed a temptation
to come to you is proof that you are strong enough
to overcome it.
So we need to look at temptation like this: God
has allowed this temptation to come to me. So that is
an indication of His confidence in me. He knows that
I can overcome even this; and He will certainly give
me the power of His Spirit to overcome it. If we look
Leading on from this prayer, Do not lead us into

temptation (which is too strong for us) is the petition, Deliver us from evil.
The word deliver could be paraphrased as, Draw
us to Thyself. So the prayer is Draw us to Thyself
from evil. God and evil are pulling in two different
directions. And we are saying,
86
87
Father, I feel this pull towards evil in my flesh.

But dont let me go that way. I dont want to yield
to it. Please pull me over Your way.
This longing and hungering to be drawn towards
God is an essential requirement for a life of victory
over sin.
One reason why the promise in Romans 6:14
Sin shall not be master over you, is not fulfilled in
the lives of many Christians is because deep down
in their hearts there is not enough of a hunger for
freedom from sin. They dont cry out, Oh God, deliver
me from sin at any cost. They are not thirsting for
it. They would have cried out if they were seriously
God-Centred Praying
Freedom from Evil
sick. But they dont feel that sinning is as bad as

being sick! No wonder they remain defeated.
It says in Exodus 2:2325,
There are many believers who pray, Oh God, protect

me from all the evil that the devil and other people
are trying to do to me. But all the while they keep

feeding their flesh (the enemys agent) by giving it
everything it wants. Then God cannot deliver them
from all evil.
Let us long for deliverance from our fleshly lusts
first. Then it will be an easy matter for us to overcome Satan. Then we will find that no evil from men
or demons can touch us.
In Romans 7:1425, we read of Pauls longing for
total deliverance from the lusts in his flesh. After
that we read in Romans 8:28, God causes all things
to work together for good. Notice the sequence. One
follows on from the other. Romans 8:28 can be true
in our lives only if we first long for deliverance from
the enemys agent the flesh.
What a wonderful promise Romans 8:28 is, that
no evil can ever come into our lives. Do you really
believe that ALL things not just some things, or
many things, or most things, not even 99% of things,
but ALL things will work together for your good?
When you look at these things individually they
may look horrible. But all of them TOGETHER will
work for good if you love God and are called according to His purpose. And His purpose is that you
should be totally free from sin and conformed to the
likeness of Christ, as it says in the very next verse
(Romans 8:29). And so if you have a longing to be
free from sin, God promises to make EVERY SINGLE
THING that ever befalls you to work together for your
good. Hallelujah!
Think of Joseph. He tried to live a godly life, and
sought to be delivered from evil according to the
light that he had. He sought to please God, and God
88
89
The sons of Israel sighed because of their

bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help
rose up to God. So God heard their groaning
and God took notice of them.
Thats when God will begin to take notice of us too
when we begin to cry out in desperation for deliverance. God says,
You will seek Me and find Me when you search
for Me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:13).
It is a principle in Scripture that for anything precious
that we are to receive from God, we must hunger and
thirst for it first. Only then do we learn to appreciate
it sufficiently. And so God waits until we hunger and
thirst; and then God gives us what we really long for.
The Christian life is a battle against Satan. And in
this battle, Satan has one of his agents right inside
us our flesh. Since our flesh is on the enemys side,
it will do everything possible to prevent us from being
effective in fighting Satan. Never forget that. Thats
why we need to long for total deliverance from the
flesh, if we are to overcome Satan.
Deliverance from All Evil
God-Centred Praying
blessed him. But how did he get treated by other

people? His ten brothers were so jealous of him that
they sold him into Egypt. That looked like an evil
thing. But we finally see, that was part of Gods plan
to make Joseph the second ruler in Egypt. The evil
that his brothers did to him turned out to be for his
good.
When he got to Egypt, he was sold as a servant into
the house of Potiphar. There Potiphars wife tempted
him, but he refused to yield to her. He ran away from
the scene of temptation. He was falsely accused by
her and put into jail. That looked like an evil thing too.
But it was God Who had planned Josephs route to
the throne via the jail for it was in that very jail that
Joseph met Pharaohs cup-bearer and thus got an
introduction to Pharaoh later on (Genesis 39 to41).
The evil that other people tried to do to Joseph out
of malice and hatred, God in His sovereignty, made
them all work together to fulfil His plan for Josephs
life.
It can be like that for us too all things working
together to fulfil what God has planned for our lives
to conform us to the likeness of Christ. But we must
believe it for we can receive Gods promise only in
proportion to our faith.
In the book of Esther, we read of Haman preparing
a gallows to hang Mordecai on. But in the end, Haman
himself is hung on that gallows (Esther 7:10). God
turned the tables on the enemy of His people. God
does the same with Satan too. He turns the tables
on him in such a way that instead of our hanging on
the gallows, the devil has to hang on the very same
gallows that he prepared for us! Hallelujah!
90
Freedom from Evil
We Need One Another

Notice too in this petition, that our prayer is, not
Deliver ME but Deliver US. It is, Deliver my
brother and me from evil. Deliver my sister and me
from evil. Deliver us, Father.
We need each other. We need fellowship with one
another to be delivered from evil.
Two are better than one for if either of them
falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to
the one who falls when there is not another to lift
him up (Ecclesiastes 4:9,10).
Thats why the devil tries to separate believers and
to bring division between them. Thats why he tries
to divide a husband and a wife too. Satan is the one
who brings little misunderstandings. He makes one
person believe one thing and the other person something else; and without anything serious having
happened, the devil separates them.
Satan knows that once he has separated believers
from each other, it is easier for him to knock them
down individually. As long as they are united he
cant do that. So he divides them. And once he has
succeeded in getting each believer to live for himself,
without caring for the other, it wont be long before
they have all lost their effectiveness for God.
We need to recognize that we have only ONE enemy
and that is Satan. Lets not fight each other then.
Lets pray for one another.
91
God-Centred Praying
Concern for a Fallen Brother

Deliver US also means that when I see my brother
fall into sin, I dont rejoice over it. I dont scandalize
him. On the contrary I feel grieved and pray for him
and seek to restore him.
In the parable of the good Samaritan, there is a
sharp contrast between the attitude of the priest and
that of the Samaritan. The priest looked at the fallen
man and probably said to himself, Thank God I didnt
fall like him, and walked on (Luke 10:3037). Thats
how some believers act when another believer has
fallen into sin. They tell others, See how hes fallen,
indirectly implying, See, how I havent fallen!
But what did the good Samaritan do? He didnt
thank God for his own victory. He went down and
lifted up that fallen man and carried him to where he
could be healed. And Jesus says to us, Go and do
the same (Luke 10:37).
Is that your attitude to a brother in whom you see
a weakness or perhaps who has fallen in some area?
Do you lift him up in prayer and take him to Jesus
for healing? Thats a fairly good test of whether you
are centred in God or not.
Its because of the self-centred desire to appear
more spiritual than others, that we dont care when
someone else falls into sin. Its an evil, Satanic spirit
that urges us to show ourselves as superior to others.
When we pray, Father deliver US from evil, there
can be no desire to show ourselves as more spiritual
than another.
We are one body in Christ. If my left hand gets
hurt, my right hand is ready at once to help in the
92
Freedom from Evil
healing of that injury. And not just my right hand,

but my entire body-mechanism gets alerted to bring
healing to that wound immediately. So must it be in
the body of Christ.
The Two Greatest Commandments
Moses came down from Mount Sinai with two tablets
of stone in his hand. On one were written the first
four commandments that dealt with mans relationship with God. On the other were written the other
six commandments that dealt with mans relationship with his fellow-men.
The Lord Jesus said that these two tablets could be
summed up in two commandments. The first, You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and
with all your soul, and with all your mind; and the
second, You shall love your neighbour as yourself
(Matthew 22:3739).
Jesus emphasised these two in the prayer that He
taught as well. The first three petitions relate to the
first commandment. And the next three petitions
relate to the second commandment, as amplified by
Jesus in the new commandment that He gave His
disciples, when He said, Love one another even as I
have loved you (John 13:34).
A true disciple of Jesus seeks to be perfectly
centred in God in his conscious and unconscious
being with every desire of his, perfectly in tune with
God; and with no desire, ambition or feeling outside
the will of God for his life. At the same time he also
seeks to love his brothers perfectly, as Jesus loved
him.
93
God-Centred Praying
He is however perpetually aware that his attitude is not as perfect as it should be in these two
directions. But he keeps working towards that goal,
always willing to pay any price in order to get there.
To love our brothers is to have a concern for them.
We cannot have a concern for everybody in the world.
Only God has that capacity. But according to our
capacity, we should have a concern for our fellowbelievers; and that capacity should keep increasing.
We dont start off like this. The first step is to love
the members of our family at home as Jesus loved
us. But we dont stop there. We move forward seeking
to love our brothers and sisters in the family of God
also as Jesus loved us.
Perfection is a goal to press on towards. But we
should be determined to reach it. Thats the direction in which Paul was going when he said, One
thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching
forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the
goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ
Jesus (Philippians 3:13, 14). The upward call of God
is to become perfectly centred in God, to love God
supremely and to love our fellow-believers as Jesus
loved us and to love our neighbours as ourselves.
Chapter 9
To God Be the Glory

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.
This prayer begins with God, Hallowed be Thy Name,
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, and it ends
with God, Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and
the glory.
God has said in His Word, I am the Alpha and the
Omega, (Revelation 1:8). God must be the very first
thought and the very last thought in the life of every
disciple of Jesus. God must be the centre as well as the
circumference of our lives. We live and move in Him,
within the circle that He has drawn for us. And within
that circle we will always find Him (Acts 17:26, 27).
The three final statements at the close of this
prayer can be compared with the three final temptations that came to our Lord in the wilderness.
The Kingdom is Gods
First of all, the statement, Thine is the kingdom.
Compare that with the third temptation, where the
devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world,
94
95
God-Centred Praying
To God Be the Glory
and said Bow down to me and take them. But

Jesus said, No. The kingdom belongs to the Father.
He alone is King. And so Jesus refused to take the
kingdom from Satans hands.
Thats why Jesus never wanted to be a king in the
days of His flesh. When people tried to make Him a
king He ran away (John 6:15). He lived as a servant
of all men.
This teaches us that we shouldnt seek to be kings
over others either. The man who longs to be a leader,
or to be known as a Christian leader, who wants to
be exalted above his fellow believers in some way, is
unfit to pray, Father, Thou alone art worthy to be
King. In Gods church, God alone is to be the King.
We are to be servants, not kings.
of music, remember that power belongs to God. He

never gives us a gift of power for us to exalt ourselves.
If we use Gods gifts selfishly for our own personal
ends, well end up like the money changers in the
temple whom Jesus had to drive out. What were they
doing there? They were making money for themselves in the name of religion. They were saying,
We are serving God but they were actually serving
themselves.
There are people like that today making a name
for themselves, making money for themselves and
their family members, in the Name of Jesus Christ
using His Name for their selfish ends.
The Power is Gods

The next statement is, Thine is the power. Power
belongs to God (Psalms 62:11). He gives us power as
a temporary loan to use for His glory; but it belongs
to Him. God doesnt give us power to use for our own
selfish ends.
Compare this with the first temptation. The devil
said to the Lord, Youve got power to turn stones
into bread, and to satisfy your hunger. Use it now.
Jesus said No. All power belongs to the Father. And
I wont use it until HE tells me to.
Many believers are unfaithful here. When God
gives them a spiritual gift they begin to use it for
their own selfish purposes.
Whatever gift you may have spiritual or natural
whether it be the gift of prophecy or of healing, or
96
It is a great evil, to do something in the Name of

Jesus Christ and to get some gain out of it for
ourselves whether that be money, fame, honour,
position, comfort or whatever. Godliness must
never become a means of gain for us (1 Timothy
6:5). Even today, Gods prophets in the church
need to drive out the money changers from Gods
Temple.
The Glory is Gods
Thirdly, Thine is the glory.
After we have prayed this spiritual prayer sincerely,
and after we have attained to this spiritual life and
after we have accomplished a wonderful ministry for
the Lord, at the end of it all, we can only say, We are
unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we
ought to have done (Luke 17:10).
97
God-Centred Praying
To God Be the Glory
And we mean what we say. Were not saying words

in false humility. Like those who may say, God has
helped me, but who deep down in their hearts, take
the credit to themselves.
Compare this statement with the second temptation that Jesus faced in the wilderness. Satan tempted
Him to jump from a high pinnacle of the Temple,
claiming Gods protection, and thus to arrive unhurt
at the bottom so that He could receive honour and
acclaim from the people as their Messiah. But Jesus
said, No. All the glory must go to the Father alone.
God is a jealous God and He will not share His
glory with us (Isaiah 42:8). There will be nothing in
heaven, in all eternity, for which any man gets the
glory. All the glory will be Gods.
And the man who has got the spirit of heaven in
his heart, will have that attitude now. He will seek to
be in the background, to be unseen and unknown,
so that peoples attention may be drawn to God and
not to him or to his work. Thus all the glory will be
Gods alone.
Such a man will have no consciousness of what he
has done for God, or of what he is spiritually. He has
nothing that he has not received and so he cannot
boast in anything (1 Corinthians 4:7). He says with
Paul, May it never be that I should boast, except in
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 6:14).
Forgetting what lies behind said Paul in
Philippians 3:13. What was it that lay behind Paul?
A victorious life and a mighty ministry for the Lord.
He put all of that out of his mind because he gave all
the glory to God for his life and his ministry.
Jesus spoke of two groups of people who would

stand before Him in the day of judgment.
One group will say, Lord, we have prophesied, cast
out devils and done wonderful works in Your Name.
They are so conscious of all that they have done for
the Lord. And the Lord says to them, Depart from me
you who practice lawlessness (Matthew 7:22,23).
To the other group, the Lord will say, You fed
Me when I was hungry, you clothed Me when I was
naked, you visited Me when I was sick and in prison.
But they have no consciousness of having done these
things! Their reply is, Lord, when did we do all that?
We dont remember doing those things. Isnt that
wonderful? And the Lord says, You are blessed. You
are fit to inherit my kingdom (Matthew 25:3140).
The righteous do good and forget about having
done it! The unrighteous however, keep a mental
record of all the good that they have done.
Are we conscious of all the good that we have done
for the Lord and for others. Then we are in the wrong
group!
98
99
For All Eternity

And then the prayer goes on to say, Forever not
for a few years, but for all eternity.
This is what we will be doing throughout eternity
praising God and giving Him the glory that is due
unto His Name. And this is a wonderful way for all
our prayers to end giving all the praise and honour
and glory to God so that no credit accrues to us to
all.
God-Centred Praying
We should always seek to turn the attention of

people away from ourselves to God. At all times, we
should aim to be hidden and in the background. Then
God can accomplish so much more of His purposes
for us, in us and through us.
It Shall Be So
The final word is Amen.
We dont want to leave out a single word of this
wonderful prayer and certainly not the final Amen.
What does Amen mean? This has unfortunately
become one of those idle words that Christians have
accumulated in their religious vocabulary.
But have you ever thought what you mean every
time you say Amen?
Amen means, It shall be so. Its the Hebrew
word for believe used in Genesis 15:6 where it says,
Abraham believed God. God told Abram, when he
had no children, that he was going to have seed as
great in number as the stars in the sky. And to that
impossible thing Abram said Amen. It shall be so
Lord, because You have said it.
Thats what Amen means. It is an affirmation of
faith.
In other words, we end our prayer saying,
To God Be the Glory
You WILL enable us to forgive others as Youve

forgiven us. You WILL NOT lead us into temptation
that is too strong for us. You WILL deliver us from
evil. The kingdom, the power and the glory WILL
be Yours alone, forever. It shall be so, Father. I
believe it with all my heart.
Amen and Amen!!
Father, I believe that all that I have asked for

WILL be granted. Your name WILL be hallowed
on earth as it is in heaven. Your kingdom WILL
come on earth as it is in heaven. Your Will WILL
be done on earth as it is in heaven. You WILL give
us our daily bread. You WILL forgive us our sins.
100
101
About the Book

Prayer is like a circle that begins and ends in God.
The first half of that circle is God giving us a burden in our
hearts through the Holy Spirit. The second half of the circle
is our praying that God-inspired prayer back to our Father.
Thus the circle is complete. This is what it means to pray
in the Spirit.
The effectiveness of our prayers will depend upon the
righteousness of our life. True righteousness makes a
God-centred.
The God-centred man has moved up to the heavenlies,
and looks at everyone and everything the way God looks at
them.
God meant prayer to be to our spirits what breathing is to
our bodies. Breathing is an effortless activity that we are
engaged in all the time.
Prayer can be a delight and a joy to you.
If you want such a life, read on
www.cfcindia.com
cfc@cfcindia.com
Zac Poonen was formerly an officer

in the Indian Navy. He has been
engaged in a church-
planting
ministry in India and other countries since 1975. He ministers at
deeper life conferences in many
lands. He and his wife Annie, live
in Bangalore, South India. They
have four married sons, who, along
with their wives, are also following
theLord.

GCP PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

GCP PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

God-Centred Praying

Copyright Zac Poonen (1990)

Paperback ISBN: 9789190565875

This Book and You.......................................... v

This book has been copyrighted to prevent misuse.

2. God Who is Our Father................................ 13

It should not be reprinted or translated without written

3. The Glory of Gods Name.............................. 25

Permission is however given for any part of this book

5. The Will of God............................................ 47

For further details

8. Freedom from Evil....................................... 81

9. To God Be the Glory..................................... 95

The Publisher cfc@cfcindia.com

1. How Not to Pray........................................... 1

4. The Kingdom of God.................................... 39

About the Book

Our Father Who art in heaven,

This Book and You

This Book and You

up to the heavenlies, and now looks at everyone and

How Not to Pray

How Not to Pray

us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the

as well. They were extremely careful in following the

For if you forgive men for their transgressions,

They loved the approval of men rather than the

The first thing that Jesus said in relation to how

The descendants of the Pharisees those who love

Not as the Hypocrites

How Not to Pray

in the first century; and so do the Pharisees in the

What was their sin?

Not Giving False Impressions

How Not to Pray

That would have been honesty, and God would have

going to be ashamed in that day are those who lived

Beware of practising your righteousness before

How Not to Pray

almost anything else. Nathaniel was not perfect. He

Not with Meaningless Repetition

How Not to Pray

And then Elijah prayed. His prayer was over in less

Not Trusting in Long Prayers

God Who is Our Father

God Who is Our Father

We dont realise what a privilege it is to call God our

had never existed before. They could now call God

Many have the wrong idea that God the Father is

God Who is Our Father

God Who is Our Father

is unapproachable; and knowing nothing of His love,

He rules over all the earth as Supreme Sovereign and

Perhaps the greatest truth that the Church needs

God Who is Our Father

miraculous results for the furtherance of Gods

next (Luke 21:26). But it is at just such a time, that

The kings heart is like channels of water in the

God Who is Our Father

The Father of a Family

spirituality do not exalt you above them in any way.

The Glory of Gods Name

recognizing His Fatherhood and His loving care,